Troubled

A New York Times Editor’s Choice One of Newsweek ’s Most Highly Anticipated Books of 2021 Named a Bustle Best Book of 2021 An award-winning journalist’s breathtaking mosaic of the tough-love industry and the young adults it inevitably fails. In the middle of the night, they are vanished. Each year thousands of young adults deemed out of control—suffering from depression, addiction, anxiety, and rage—are carted off against their will to remote wilderness programs and treatment facilities across the country. Desperate parents of these “troubled teens” fear it’s their only option. The private, largely unregulated behavioral boot camps break their children down, a damnation the children suffer forever. Acclaimed journalist Kenneth R. Rosen knows firsthand the brutal emotional, physical, and sexual abuse carried out at these programs. He lived it. In Troubled , Rosen unspools the stories of four graduates on their own scarred journeys through the programs into adulthood. Based on three years of reporting and more than one hundred interviews with other clients, their parents, psychologists, and health-care professionals, Troubled combines harrowing storytelling with investigative journalism to expose the disturbing truth about the massively profitable, sometimes fatal, grossly unchecked redirection industry. Not without hope, Troubled ultimately delivers an emotional, crucial tapestry of coming of age, neglect, exploitation, trauma, and fraught redemption.

A New York Times Editor’s Choice One of Newsweek ’s Most Highly Anticipated Books of 2021 Named a Bustle Best Book of 2021 An award-winning journalist’s breathtaking mosaic of the tough-love industry and the young adults it inevitably fails. In the middle of the night, they are vanished. Each year thousands of young adults deemed out of control—suffering from depression, addiction, anxiety, and rage—are carted off against their will to remote wilderness programs and treatment facilities across the country. Desperate parents of these “troubled teens” fear it’s their only option. The private, largely unregulated behavioral boot camps break their children down, a damnation the children suffer forever. Acclaimed journalist Kenneth R. Rosen knows firsthand the brutal emotional, physical, and sexual abuse carried out at these programs. He lived it. In Troubled , Rosen unspools the stories of four graduates on their own scarred journeys through the programs into adulthood. Based on three years of reporting and more than one hundred interviews with other clients, their parents, psychologists, and health-care professionals, Troubled combines harrowing storytelling with investigative journalism to expose the disturbing truth about the massively profitable, sometimes fatal, grossly unchecked redirection industry. Not without hope, Troubled ultimately delivers an emotional, crucial tapestry of coming of age, neglect, exploitation, trauma, and fraught redemption.

'Masterpiece' Evening Standard 'Fascinating' The Economist Best Titles of 2024 In this vivid coming-of-age memoir, Rob Henderson recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending elite universities – and what he learnt from seeing life from both sides of the tracks. In this heartbreaking and thought-provoking memoir, Rob Henderson vividly recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending Yale and Cambridge, and pioneering the concept of ‘luxury beliefs’ – ideas and opinions that confer status on the more educated while inflicting costs on the less fortunate. Rave Reader Reviews ‘Eye-opening and heart-breaking’ ‘Inspiring’ ‘Incredible’ ‘Wow’ ‘Powerful and thought-provoking’

'Masterpiece' Evening Standard 'Fascinating' The Economist Best Titles of 2024 In this vivid coming-of-age memoir, Rob Henderson recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending elite universities – and what he learnt from seeing life from both sides of the tracks. In this heartbreaking and thought-provoking memoir, Rob Henderson vividly recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending Yale and Cambridge, and pioneering the concept of ‘luxury beliefs’ – ideas and opinions that confer status on the more educated while inflicting costs on the less fortunate. Rave Reader Reviews ‘Eye-opening and heart-breaking’ ‘Inspiring’ ‘Incredible’ ‘Wow’ ‘Powerful and thought-provoking’