I was at a Science Fiction Convention in February and at a panel a writer was talking about Young Adult Genre crossing over into SF Genre with the focus on identity.
Since that is a common theme in YA books he brought up a book that he mentioned 'might not be in print any longer' so as it sounded very interesting I had made note of it, but somewhere along the line I lost the info.
In this book a young girl raised by a robot on an alien world and while she saw herself as human something had happened to her ( I think the robot might have used some kind of re-engineering on her so she could survive on the planet or perhaps she was disfigured or maybe she's not human, I'm not really sure ) so that she didn't look human.
As a result she was never allowed to look at herself in a mirror, or something, so when other humans finally found her it was hard for them to see her as human, ergo the identity aspect of the book: What makes one human? Is she human if she believes she is?
A few other details that I recall: She lived in a harsh world, everyone else in her group or settlement or whatever was dead and I had the impression they may have lived in a cave or something (though that could be wrong).
Now I never read this book and am not sure if I'm explaining it very well, I'm not even sure if it's from the 50's 60's 70's or 80's but I don't think it's more recent then that, so I hold no real belief that I can find the answer to WHAT IS THIS BOOK? even here...
Still I thought I might give it a shot as the story sounded very interested.
