While this book comes across as a warts and all look at one of the big players in the teen help industry it fails to ask some really fundamental questions.
What would have been a less harsh and equally effective solution for Jerome, the boy who had never touched an illicit drug and who only needed greater attention academically to thrive? Why was his mother not encouraged to look at the alternative school that he ended up at first? Is there a potential danger in putting a naive and socially challenged kid from the suburbs in a place with world weary drug taking sophisticates? Is it culturally appropriate for a Hispanic girl with devout catholic beliefs to have to confess her sexual sins publicly?
This book also presents the kids relapses as an unfortunate accident without extensively delving into why. It strikes me that Trevor, the witty and easygoing Englishman never really learnt how to survive outside of the highly artificial world of ASR. Perhaps this was because it did not give him the self worth to refuse to engage in behaviours extreme enough to be life threatening or the practical tools to say no to a very real and strong temptation.
And what of the staff? Only one line was devoted to the fact that the enthusiastic English teacher left claiming the only thing she loved about the place was the kids. Why was this so?
And what is the effect of such a high turnover of staff on vulnerable troubled young people? DJ the ADD adoptee began a down hill slide when his favourite PE teacher Big Mike abruptly left.
Finally it does not question at all the morality of the programme. Actively punishing hardworking kids such as Jerome for not turning in their friends when they confide in each other does not teach loyalty or strengthen friendship. It comes across as mean spirited and unjust. Does any school have the moral right to tell a mother what she should or should not put in a letter to her child?
While this book is quite clear about what goes on at a therapeutic boarding school it asks no questions at all about the controversial aspects of the industry and presents it as the only solution for difficult children.
