Saving Alex

January 11, 2016
In this affecting memoir, Cooper recounts the horrifying abuse inflicted on her at an unlicensed residential treatment program in southern Utah. After Alex came out to her parents as a lesbian, they sent her to strangers who subjected her to physical and emotional torture and an orthodox version of Mormonism in hopes of making her realize her sexuality was a choice. The last third of the book recounts how Alex, with the help of a dedicated lawyer, managed to swim upstream against the Utah court system and gain the legal right to refuse reparative therapy. It’s harrowing to read how outsiders, including religious leaders, and her own parents ignored Alex’s various attempts to escape and constantly sided with her abusers. Even with Alex’s explanatory asides, some non-Mormon readers might be occasionally puzzled by cultural practices and terminology. The positive ending to her story (and the slim chances for such an ending in the first place) calls all readers to do more for vulnerable youth. Without offering any easy reconciliation between homosexuality and faith, Alex’s story provides an example of how to not be consumed by anger and hate toward an abusive version of religion.

January 1, 2016
A memoir of a lesbian Mormon who stood up for her rights. When 15-year-old Cooper told her parents that she was gay, she had no idea she would cause a tidal wave in her Mormon family and community. "I can see how terrifying it must have been, for my mom especially," she writes, "because our religion told her there was no place for people like me, no place in the faith and the community that held her world together, and no place in God's plan." Unable to deal with the issue, the author's parents sent her to Utah to live with a strict Mormon family who swore they could change and "cure" her of her homosexuality. Their treatment methods were abusive, both physically and verbally, and Cooper struggled to survive each day for the eight months she had to live with this couple and their family. The author's prose is expressive, honest, and moving as she writes about how she battled to balance her own sense of faith and acceptance of her sexual identity with the strong tenets being forced upon her, which excluded gay people completely. Surrounded by Mormons who believed the couple was doing the right thing and ignored Cooper's pleas for help, she had to draw on inner strengths that she didn't know she had. Eventually, she managed to find help from other gay people hidden in the community and outside the state of Utah. Cooper's story demonstrates how a strong belief in any religion can cause people to do great harm to other humans simply because that religion justifies their methods and actions. It also shows how it is still possible to endure and prevail. The traumatic and illuminating events suffered by a teenage girl who dared to say she was gay in a religious community that doesn't readily accept homosexuality.

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July 1, 2016

Raised in the Mormon Church, Cooper was always a rebellious teenager. With her Mormon friends, she snuck out of her parents' house, smoked marijuana, and talked back. None of these actions caused much drama in her household, but when the high school sophomore admitted to her parents that the hickey on her neck was from a girl, their family life exploded. Told that she was going to live with her grandparents, Cooper instead was sent to a residential home in St. George, UT, where she was mentally and physically abused in order to "fix" her homosexuality. With the assistance of caring teachers and friends, Cooper legally escaped the respected Mormon family who were trying to "cure" her, and a Salt Lake City pro bono lawyer helped her win the right to live with her parents as an openly gay teenager. Cooper never tried to completely break with her parents; she makes it clear that she wants to be their daughter and to be honest about her identity. This memoir is sure to rile teens to action. Information about Gay-Straight Alliances, PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People), and student rights is integrated effectively into the narrative, and even reluctant readers will enjoy this memoir. VERDICT A moving, timely memoir perfect for teens who love autobiographies or LGBTQ books, or reluctant readers who need a short biography to fulfill a class assignment.-Sarah Hill, Lake Land College, Mattoon, IL

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2016
When 15-year-old Alex comes out, her devout Mormon parents send her to an unlicensed residential facility in southern Utah that promises to cure her. The married couple who run the facility out of their home have no therapeutic or counseling training, and they physically and emotionally abuse Alex. When she tries to escape, for example, she is punched, beaten with a belt, and made to stand for hours at a time facing a wall and wearing a backpack filled with rocks. When, after months, she is finally permitted to go to school, she finds both a supportive friend and a courageous teacher who put her in touch with a Salt Lake City attorney, who agrees to represent her pro bono. Thus begins a long legal process in a state that is less than sympathetic to LGBT teens. Even though readers know the outcomeAlex wins the right to live under the law's protection as an openly gay teenagerthe process is still suspenseful, and the well-written account of her eight months of reparative therapy makes for compelling reading. Alex's horrifying story is one that needs to be heard, and her book is an eloquent testament to that. It is encouraging proof that, as Alex is told, things do get better.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)