Clean by Amy Reed
I didn’t think I’d like this book, but it turns out I did. It’s about a group of teenagers (Olivia, Kelly, Christopher, Jason, and Eva) who’ve been sent to rehab. They’re addicts, all of them. Some are “good kids”, some not so good, but all with different addictions, family situations, and relationships. During the month they’re in rehab we learn their darkest secrets and what they fear most.
The story unfolds person by person, bit by bit. The characters are well-developed, if a bit typecast: the bad boy, the rich girl, the jock, the misfit, the girl with no self-worth. By the end of the book, I liked all of them and I wanted them to clean up their lives. A month in rehab isn’t long enough to fix all their problems, but we hope like heck it’s long enough for them to get a handle on them. I think Clean is a pretty realistic snapshot of life in rehab for a young person. I think the real key to success for these kids is learning to build social capital and this book does a good job of demonstrating how when we connect with others and learn to trust we can work on our problems together.
I got a little teary at the end since I’d really invested in the characters, and I desperately wanted them to succeed.
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