I See You, Survivor

Ianelli debuts with a disturbing exposé of the “troubled teen industry,” focused on the upstate New York institution she attended starting at age 12. Donning the moniker Survivor993 (a reference to the number of days she lived at an establishment called the Family Foundation), Ianelli gained traction on social media detailing horrors she expands on here, including physical abuse and coerced “confessions” that were later used as evidence of nonexistent drug and alcohol addictions to persuade her parents to keep her institutionalized. In between bombshell revelations (Family Foundation administrators promoted themselves as addiction and recovery experts, but did not meet state requirements to provide those services), Ianelli celebrates the resilience of her fellow survivors. Her quest for justice against so-called “tough love” schools that allow abusers to act with near-impunity is incendiary and uncompromising. So much so that Ianelli’s anger can sometimes feel misplaced: “Because you haven’t listened, this abuse is happening today, right now, as you read this,” she writes at one point, not quite earning the indictment of her audience. Still, this unflinching memoir presents a moving message of triumph over trauma. Agent: Daniel Greenberg, Levine Greenberg Literary. (Aug.)