Review: "I See You, Survivor" by Liz Ianelli

I See You, Survivor by Liz Ianelli
Published August 2023 via Hachette Books
★★★

I am scared right now. I am so scared you will think I'm crazy or dangerous for admitting that. I'm scared you will close this book and say, I thought Liz was strong, that she was a fighter and a survivor, but this...this feels like too much. (loc. 507*)

Ianelli was fifteen when her parents sent her to the Family—a "therapeutic boarding school" for troubled teenagers. She was eighteen when the facility could no longer hold her against her will and she left—but the trauma of her experience didn't end there.

On the surface, the troubled teen industry seems to be doing a good thing: taking at-risk youth and putting them in programs that are heavy on structure. The claims are big—that they save teenagers from addiction, promiscuity, early death. But the facts are bigger: the industry is unregulated, staff are rarely adequately trained, abuse is rampant, and reports of deaths at (and, critically, after) such programs are high. (And then the programs explain it all away by saying "they were already troubled, not our fault, at least we kept them alive for a few extra months or years".) I've read a fair amount about the troubled teen industry already, enough to go into Ianelli's book expecting abuse. And, well, that's what's in here. Physical, sexual, emotional, medical, spiritual abuse—let's just say that the Family didn't do things by halves.

It's a complicated, messy story, a manifesto and a lament and a confession and a record all rolled up in a ball of rage. The voice will likely be hit or miss for readers, but Ianelli is doing something valuable in her focus on not just her time in the Family but the continued struggle that came after, as a direct result of those years at the Family. I don't recommend going into this blind, because, as Ianelli notes, survivors of such programs (I hesitate to call them "schools") are often doubted—as in, "okay, it wasn't a good place, but surely it can't have been that bad". Sometimes it's easier to believe reports of abuse if they come from an outside source, so if this is a new topic for you...find some outside sources too, because these are voices and stories that should be taken seriously.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.