"'This is a school for girls going through a rough patch. Girls whose parents...' Mom pauses, then closes her mouth. Her dark brown eyes are bright with tears, even though she's the one choosing to send me away.
In my head I fill in the rest of Mom's sentence: girls whose parents can't handle them anymore...Girls whose parents think there's something wrong with them, so they send them away, hoping for a fix."
Moira, narrator of Alyssa Sheinmel's The Castle School (for Troubled Girls), has lost her best (and actually only) friend. At first they thought Nathan's brain tumor would be curable. He'd lose his hair. He might have to repeat a grade. But he'd be okay. But nothing worked. And she was there for him until people wouldn't let her.
After his death nothing seemed to matter to her. She cut school as she'd done when Nathan was confined to home or hospitalized. She visited his grave in the middle of the night. She increasingly fought with her desperate to find a solution mother.
The school she gets sent to, the Castle School, is in a real castle. She and the eleven other students (the term patients is taboo) must follow really strict rules. They aren't even allowed to know what time or day it is. What passes for education is a farce. Students can do the school work or not. It's not like they're getting grades.
They're supposed to be helped by group and individual therapy, building a peer community, fresh Maine air, organic food, and being stuck in the middle of nowhere...
...Or are they?...
...Hearing faint music Moira investigates. The lock on her window is broken, allowing her to sneak out without attracting attention. A little way through the woods she finds an identical castle housing a dozen boy students (not patients). But they have fewer rules and more comfortable living space.
What the heck is going on? Could it be some kind of covert research on treatment methods? Rather than patients or students, could the teens be guinea pigs?
Although I recommend this book I agree with the content warning: This book contains depictions of mental illness, included but not limited to addiction, anorexia, self-harm, and trichotillomania.
On a purrrsonal note when I was eleven I refused to be confirmed because I had some issues with religion, the biggest being the idea that the only way to salvation was through Jesus. I had Jewish and Muslim friends. I didn't plan on ever being confirmed. But then a youth pastor who I loved was dying of a brain tumor. I knew the one gift I could give her was getting confirmed before she died. So I did and it meant so much to her. To this day I have no regrets. I think God understands.
I've got some bad news. You'll be seeing fewer reviews, at least for awhile. My "smart"phone somehow lost all the reviews I'd saved in drafts--about twenty which were all inter library loans. So I have to send away for these books to rewrite them. Sorry about that. Technology is a decidedly mixed blessing.
Jules Hathaway
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
