Our 9 Favorite Feature Stories This Week: Lobsters, Stalkers, And Brain Eating Amoebas

This week for BuzzReads, Peter Andrey Smith tells the story of a girl who survived a brain-eating amoeba attack — against all odds. Read that and these other great stories from BuzzFeed and around the web.

1. Survivor No. 3 — BuzzFeed

Danny Johnston / AP Photo

One year ago, Kali Hardig went swimming at an Arkansas water park and the next day was rushed to the hospital where doctors diagnosed her with a rare, 99% fatal condition: a brain-eating amoeba. This is the miraculous story of how she lived. Read it at BuzzFeed.

2. The New Face of Hunger — National Geographic

Photograph by Kitra Cahana for National Geographic

Three photographers went to three different corners of the country in order to put faces to a troubling statistic, that even in our rich, often overweight nation, one sixth of people struggle to get enough to eat. Read it at National Geographic.

3. Stalker in the Attic — Mashable

Mashable

Patrick Michels brings the eerie tale of two Texas teenagers who were apparently the victims of cyber — and then real-world — stalking. After the abuse suddenly stopped, "The community, wrapped in forces they still don't understand, is left to wonder how 12-year-olds, or their phones, could be capable of such a complex scheme." Read it at Mashable.

4. The Strange Case Of The Congressman Who Resigned And Never Left — BuzzFeed

buzzfeed.com

In 2011, he resigned in disgrace after alleged sexual relations with an 18-year-old girl. Kate Nocera asks: Why is former Rep. David Wu still wandering the halls of Congress? Read it at BuzzFeed.

5. The Weird, Scary and Ingenious Mind of Maria Bamford — New York Times Magazine

Tierney Gearon for The New York Times

Sara Corbett profiles the comedian: "When she does her stand-up, when she acts on television and most notably in several web series she has written and starred in, she plays an exaggerated version of herself — a tremolo-voiced woman with a stunned expression, trying to navigate a world of people whose confidence is appreciably higher than her own." Read it at the New York Times Magazine.

6. One of a Kind — New Yorker

Photograph by Phillip Toledano for the New Yorker

A powerful piece by Seth Mnookin about a family whose child suffers from a genetic condition so rare it was unknown to science — and their quest online to find others. Read it at the New Yorker.

7. My Travels with Larry — The Globe and Mail

Photograph by Scott Munn for The Globe and Mail

How does a lobster worth $3.50 on a wharf end up selling for more than $60 by the time it hits a plate in New York? Ian Brown follows one lobster's journey to find out. Read it at The Globe and Mail.

8. My 14-Hour Search for the End of TGI Friday's Endless Appetizers — Gawker

Art by Tara Jacoby for Gawker

A hilarious journey into the fried-and-breaded hell that is the new TGI Friday's all-you-can-eat appetizer special by Caity Weaver. "Earlier I said these mozzarella sticks taste like garbage. I would like to amend that statement. They taste worse than garbage." Read it at Gawker.

9. My Runaway Childhood — Narratively

Illustration by Mardou for Narratively

A painful personal essay by Melissa Chadburn about her flight from her abusive, mentally ill mother — and into a potentially even scarier world. Read it at Narratively.

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