Dead Inside
A True Story
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3.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
This fast-paced memoir that New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins called “Compelling. Scary. Totally real" gives readers a glimpse into the unbelievable reality of a young girl's 16 months in the notorious "tough love" program the ACLU called "a concentration camp for throwaway kids."
I never was a badass. Or a slut, a junkie, or a stoner, like they told me I was. I was just a kid looking for something good, something that felt like love. I was a wannabe in a Levi's jean jacket. Anybody could see that. Except my mother. And the staff at Straight.
I was thirteen when I ran away from my abusive home. After a month in a shelter for kids--the best month of my childhood--my mother heard about Princess Di and First Lady Nancy Reagan's visit to this place that was working miracles with troubled teens. Straight Inc., it was called.
Straight described itself as a drug rehab, a "direction for youth." Strictly false advertising. An accurate description came from the ACLU, which called it "A concentration camp for throwaway teens." Inside the windowless warehouse, Straight used bizarre and intimidating methods to "treat" us; to turn us into the type of kids our parents wanted. The Dead Inside takes readers behind Straight's closed doors, illustrating why the program was eventually investigated, sued, and closed down for abusing children.
"Raw and absorbing, Etler's voice captivates"—Kirkus Reviews
"[An] unnerving and heartrending memoir..."—Publishers Weekly
"Etler weaves her story with conviction, self-deprecating humor, and hard facts"—Booklist
"This is a memoir unlike anything else on the shelves today"—Germ Magazine
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Etler's unnerving and heartrending memoir begins in 1980s Connecticut when she was 13; Cyndy's father died years earlier, leaving her in the care of her mother, whose second husband sexually abused Cyndy. When Cyndy began fighting back and attempting to escape, she fell in with a bad crowd from nearby Bridgeport. Choosing to enter foster care rather than live with her mother, Cyndy was eventually sent to Straight, Incorporated, an ostensible rehab program/"boarding school" where she spent more than a year being abused, bullied, and brainwashed into believing she was a drug addict. Given Etler's recounting of absurd and abusive scare tactics such as "spit therapy," in which Straightlings are spit on by higher-ranking children, and "carrying," in which newcomers are carted around by their belt loops and underwear, readers may be stunned that a place like Straight could exist, let alone that a parent would willingly send a child there. Details about the history of Straight, Inc., are included in an afterword, not seen by PW. Ages 14 up.
Customer Reviews
Dead Inside
Very interesting and scary. Can’t believe these places really exist!