Synopses & Reviews
At age fifteen, Abigail Vona lived a life so far out of control (booze, boys, drugs, stealing, and runaway charges that her father committed her to Peninsula Village, a controversial treatment facility for “behavior modification” in Louisville, Tennessee. She was kept inside this “level-three lockdown” and “wilderness boot camp” for nearly a year. And though it all started as a nightmare, it eventually became her salvation.
An errant soul at war with the world and especially with herself, Vona unabashedly takes readers inside her own private Idaho. And while she negotiates the dangerous terrain of this “tough love” program, she reveals the many dark secrets of the Bad Girl sisterhood. Contending with various behavioral problems (sexual excess, violence, drug addiction, anorexia, self-mutilation, etc.) some of these girls succeed, while others must either continue serving their term, or worse, be kicked back to their desperate lives on the outside.
Vona’s tells her vivid story with a twelve-step, chapter-by-chapter descent to rock bottom, which arcs into a twelve-step, chapter-by-chapter ascent to a new way of seeing her life. Most controversial, Vona secured, and includes throughout the book, excerpts from her actual psychiatric “progress notes” to both underscore and belie her narrative.
A book that will resonate with young women and their mothers alike, Bad Girl is an Every Girl story of teenage rebellion and self-discovery, accelerated to the extreme.
Abigail Vona is from West Hartford, Connecticut. After being released from Peninsula Village, she attended the Forman School in Litchfield, Connecticut, a school serving students with learning disabilities such as ADD and dyslexia, graduating in May 2003. She is currently taking classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Review
"[T]he notes of staff members who observed Vona in both group and individual therapy sessions...provide another perspective, which sometimes meshes and sometimes conflicts with her account. Raw and unsettling, yet ultimately reassuring." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[B]oth a gripping diary by an out-of-control teenager...and a cumbersome, disconnected autobiography....The diary is pretty graphic and pretty awful..." Library Journal
Synopsis
Abigail Vona is an attractive, well-spoken eighteen-year-old...now. But just three years ago, Abby lived a life so far out of control (booze, boys, drugs, stealing, runaway charges, jail) that her father committed her to Peninsula Village, a controversial treatment facility for "behavior modification" in Maryville Tennessee. She remained in this "lockdown and wilderness" boot camp for over a year. With narrative drive, color, surprise, and a range of provocative characters, this is the ultimate story of adolescence told to the extreme.
Synopsis
Three years ago, fifteen-year-old Abigail Vona lived a life so far out of control (booze, boys, drugs, stealing, and runaway charges) that her father committed her to Peninsula Village, a controversial treatment facility for "behavior modification" in Louisville, Tennessee. She was kept inside this "level-three lockdown" and "wilderness boot camp" for nearly a year. And though it all started out as a nightmare, it eventually became her salvation.
An errant soul at war with the world and especially with herself, Vona unabashedly takes readers inside her own private Idaho. And while she negotiates the dangerous terrain of this "tough love" program, she reveals many dark secrets of the Bad Girl sisterhood. Contending with various behavioral problems (sexual excess, violence, drug addiction, anorexia, self-mutilation, etc.) some of these girls succeed, while others must continue serving their term, or worse, be kicked back to their desperate lives on the outside. A book that will resonate with young women and their mothers alike, Bad Girl is an Every Girl story of teenage rebellion and discovery, accelerated to the extreme.
About the Author
Abigail Vona is from West Hartford, Connecticut. After being released from Peninsula Village, she attended the Forman School in Litchfield, Connecticut, a school serving students with learning disabilities such as ADD and dyslexia, graduating in May 2003. She is currently taking classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.