Stolen
Ratings1
Average rating4
15
Ratings1
Average rating4
In the vein of Know My Name and Unorthodox, debut author Elizabeth Gilpin grippingly chronicles her harrowing experience of psychological manipulation and abuse at a "therapeutic" boarding school for troubled teens, and how she was able to heal in the aftermath. At fifteen, Elizabeth was an honor student, a state-ranked swimmer and a rising soccer star, but behind closed doors, her dysfunctional family was tearing her apart. Growing angrier by the day, she began drinking to excess, missing practices, and acting out. Her parents and school counselors deemed her impossible and petulant, and decided that Elizabeth needed a school program with strict behavioral limitations. Her life was then ripped in two: the years before she was kidnapped in the middle of the night at the request of her parents, and everything that came after. Officially, Carlbrook, the institution where she was held for two years, was a therapeutic boarding school for troubled teens. In reality, it was more of a prison than a school, where children were known only by their number. The staff was a group of under-qualified and unstable counselors who practiced a perverse form of pseudo-therapy on their charges. Elizabeth was stripped of basic human rights, forced to participate in mismanaged group therapy sessions, and force fed when she wouldn't eat. In STOLEN, Elizabeth chronicles the abuse she endured, the friends she lost to suicide and addiction, and, years later, the way she was finally able to pick up the pieces.
Reviews with the most likes.
There really isn't a way to rate a memoir in my opinion as they are a writers life story, but five stars is what I will give because everybody deserves to know they matter.
Elizabeth Gilpin was sent to what can only be described as a teen conversion camp for those deemed “rebellious”. Her journey began at 14 when she was sent to live in the Appalachian mountains because her parents felt she was not controllable. The time spent on the mountain was rigorous and humiliating and made me sick to think that adults would subject children to such horrid conditions to change their lives and mold them to the good children the parents sought. Elizabeth had to eat her own vomit, deal with her devastating fear of the dark, and go days on end eating freeze dried rice and beans.
After her time on the mountain she was sent to Carlbrook School where she was left to be taught how to become a better person. She endured, along with countless other teens, months and months of workshops that were meant to humiliate and mock them. The ideals of this school are disgusting and they did so much more harm then I think they even realize. I'm glad to see that his school was shut down but to think that schools/organizations still thrive out there where they think belittling a person is therapy is beyond absurd.
I felt so sad for Elizabeth and so angry at her parents for not listening. I'm so glad I took the time to read this memoir and I hope that with Elizabeth's story others who have been subjected to such awful treatment find their voice.
