Annie's Reviews > The Elissas: Three Girls, One Fate, and the Deadly Secrets of Suburbia

A really interesting book in some ways, but not without its flaws.

Author Samantha Leach had a childhood best friend: Elissa P. After an incident at school, Elissa P's parents ship her off to a troubled teen boarding school in Nebraska (Ponca Pines) -- which is now closed, thank God, though there are plenty more like it.

While there, Elissa P befriends two other "Elissas": Alyssa N and Alissa O. The three of them spend their high school years getting into trouble, and honing their budding addictions to drugs and alcohol. They each get mysterious matching tattoos which are eerily prescient: "Save Our Souls."

Throughout high school, Elissa P maintains her friendship with Samantha, but it's clear Elissa is going down a very different path from her best friend. Samantha still feels very close to Elissa, though she is a bit jealous of her closeness with her Elissa friends.

Within a few years, all three Elissas would be dead.

Elissa P dies at 18, of encephalitis brought on by infection, likely related to her constant drug use.

Alyssa N dies at age 23. She's found dead in a bathtub of a heroin overdose.

Alissa O dies at age 26. She dies of sepsis (unclear if this is related to her history of drug addiction, but presumably).

Samantha Leach, mesmerized by the strange tattoo shared by the three Elissas, and by the ways in which they - who started out with a similarly privileged life like Leach herself - were failed by the systems set up to support them, in ways that ultimately led to their very young deaths. Leach delves into the world of the trouble teen industry to try to find answers.

Unfortunately, that's kind of where this ends. I thought the narratives focused on each of the three Elissas were fascinating, and important to show how the trouble teen industry (and other industries like it - e.g. wilderness therapy, certain kinds of addiction rehab for adults) really failed them, and ultimately did far more harm than good. However, I think Leach needed to probe this point more and really articulate the specific ways in which this happened for the Elissas, and "troubled teens" in general. More general critique of the industries, and why they are ineffective, and what alternatives are viable, would have left me feeling more satisfied at the end.