Cyndy Etler

An intense story of survival from a substance abuse program that left more scars than it healed After Cyndy fights off her stepfather's sexual advances, she escapes from the violence of her home. But she's reported as a runaway, and Cyndy soon finds herself in a drug rehab facility that changes her world. She's sent to Straight, Inc. To the public, Straight, Inc. was a place of recovery. But behind closed doors, it's something else entirely, using sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and brainwashing as methods of treatment in a cramped, windowless warehouse. In her memoir, Cyndy recounts the horrific and unforgettable months she spent living this nightmare.

Straightling

Paige Green

Rating: 3/5

Genre: YA Memoir 

Recommended Age: 16+ (language, abuse in many forms, sexual assault, drugs, running away, trigger warnings for rape and abuse)

I received a free copy of this book courtesy of KidLitExchange. All opinions are my own.

I never was a badass. Or a slut, a junkie, 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 professionals at Straight.
From the outside, Straight Inc. was a drug rehab. But on the inside it was...well, it was something else.
All Cyndy wanted was to be loved and accepted. By age fourteen, she had escaped from her violent home, only to be reported as a runaway and sent to a "drug rehabilitation" facility that changed her world.
To the public, Straight Inc. was a place of recovery. But behind closed doors, the program used bizarre and intimidating methods to "treat" its patients. In her raw and fearless memoir, Cyndy Etler recounts her sixteen months in the living nightmare that Straight Inc. considered "healing." – Amazon.com


This was probably the hardest book I’ve had to read this year. This book follows the author as a young girl who does some stupid things to make up for her horrible home life. She’s sent to a rehabilitation center where things only go worse for her. I felt that while the story is told from the author’s POV that she did a very decent job with character descriptions and making the characters in this novel come alive (even though they all are/were, it helps to have a great description about them). The author also didn’t seem to spend a lot of time concentrating on non-important events and the plot was very clear in the novel. 

However, I do feel like the writing was a bit weird for my personal tastes. The book jumped around a lot and sometimes flashed between past and present so weirdly and unexpectedly that it made me really confused while reading it. I also felt that the writing was a bit weird to understand in places as well. The book is wrote as if someone is talking to you, but that type of writing does not translate so well on paper most times.

Verdict: Overall, I thought the book was a frightening tale of one woman’s true experience and it would make for a very interesting read for anyone who is interested in memoirs. Personally though, I did not enjoy the book. I work in the criminal justice field and I felt very emotional during the majority of this book. I also had to reread sections of the book in order for it to make sense to me. I think this could be a great read for college students studying a number of subjects in the humanities field and it would be a good book for someone who enjoys memoirs. However, please be careful reading this book as it is a very serious and hard book to read because of what happens in the book.

Laura

Fun fact, I found this book in the local library thinking it was fiction, because it's in the fiction section. It's not. It's a memoir. But it is written like a fiction novel which makes me think fiction is in this author's future. 

In this case, the fictional feel of the memoir made it easy to read and hard to put down. I read the whole thing in one sitting, intrigued by the fucked up nature of Straight Inc. Young Cyndy was an interesting narrator, and I liked the 80s slang that peppered her voice. Also, she gets bonus points for actually managing to sound her age in the memoir. Cyndy actually seemed 13-14, not 8. I find that a lot of YA authors when writing a character that's younger than 15 make them sound like they're fresh out of elementary school, not middle school- see The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Cyndy was believable as an 80s young teen- I could imagine her with her big 80s hair and jean jacket giggling about boys at the mall with Joanna.

I also loved that it took partly in Connecticut. I didn't expect it too, and thought it was just a coincidence when Bridgeport was mentioned. But then Stamford and Norwalk and Monroe showed up, and I kind of loved that I knew everything she was talking about. I'm happy this book showed a different Connecticut than the one that usually shows up in books. Fairfield County, Greenwich, Westport, rich areas with Old Money WASPish families and the only cotillion classes available this side of the Mason-Dixon Line. Either that or charming colonial-era towns populated by lovable eccentrics straight out of Gilmore Girls. In reality, while it is true Connecticut is home to some of the richest area codes in the country and has plenty of picturesque small towns, there's a huge wealth divide, and many of the major cities are Not the Best Places to Live as a result. I mean, sure, there's a couple of exceptions- Trumbull's pretty nice for instance- Bridgeport, New Haven (there's a reason most of the Yalies live in Woodbridge), and Hartford are pretty bad places to be late at night. We also have a lot of rural towns and old blue collar mill towns that have picked themselves back up by varying degrees after industry left America. My point is, Cyndy paints a good portrait of what the real Connecticut is. Her descriptions of Monroe as a Podunk town especially made me laugh- Monroe's on the edge of the rural area- it's not really rural, but I could see how someone from Stamford would think that. 

Continue reading this review on my blog here: https://bookwormbasics.blogspot.com/2...

Straightling

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