Saving Alex--"We still have a lot of work to do"

Title:  Saving Alex:  When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That's When My Nightmare Began

Author:  Alex Cooper with Joanna Brooks

What it’s about (in 75 words or fewer): When fifteen-year-old Alex tells her parents that she is a lesbian, she thinks her parents are sending her away to live with her grandparents.  However, Alex's parents send her to the Siales, a husband and wife team who take in "rebellious" teenagers and "fix" them.  Until Alex manages to escape with the help of school staff and a lawyer, she is physically and mentally abused in order to "cure" her of her homosexuality.

What I think (in 250 words or fewer):  Saving Alex that reads like one of those delightfully trashy unauthorized Kitty Kelley biographies that I went through a phase of reading in high school (don't judge).  I do not mean, however, to negate the seriousness of Alex's story by comparing it to a sensationalist novel.  Saving Alex is an autobiography and therefore is authorized, and it is truly horrifying.

If you are looking for a nuanced book about issues in the Mormon church with homosexuality and conversion therapy, this is not the book for you.  The Siales family and the church are the bad guys in this book.  Alex and her friends are the "good guys."  Alex's parents maybe mean well, but they do not respect her autonomy at all and argue through their lawyers that Alex has been "brainwashed" into "thinking she's gay," and this is just a teenage rebellion that she's going through.

It was difficult for me reading this book to remember that it does NOT take place in the super-olden times or even in the years before homosexuality was removed from the DSM--the events in this book took place in 2010 and later.  I shouldn't be shocked that people still feel this way about LGBTQ people (all you have to do is read a YouTube comment thread to see the dredges of humanity) but it's disappointing to me that conversion therapy is still legal in most states. 

We still have a lot of work to do.

My final takeaway: As far as vocabulary and readability, this story is extremely easy to read.  The subject matter, however, is horrifying but could serve as a call-to-action for people.

This book is on the 2017 Rainbow Book List.

My favorite quotes/passages:  I don't know if I can call these parts my "favorites"--in true story with such disturbing subject matter, I don't think favorite is the right word.  More like "the passages that I found the most memorable.

• "Now, your parents are good people . . . They'll make it it the celestial kingdom.  You won't be there unless you change.  But even if you're gay and you don't get into the celestial kingdom, God wouldn't want to deprive them, so there will be a copy of you with them, but it won't really be you" (hardback edition, pg. 71-72).
• "I looked at the backpack, studied the straps and the shapes of the rocks through the fabric, but I could scarcely take in the reality of what she was telling me.  I would be wearing this backpack every day?  To represent the "burden" of being gay?  It was like she was speaking in a foreign language" (pg. 87).
• "Daisies are beautiful but flimsy against what nature throws at them. But a tree is strong and won't be broken against any kind of weather.
  I am a tree" (pg. 102).
• "It's not a disease or sickness, and I'm not going to try to change it anymore.  I'm tired of hearing I'm wrong and I'm going to hell, because I'm not.  And I'm not going to surround myself with people who tell me I am" (pg. 190).

Other reviews: New York Journal of Books and Kirkus

This book is available in the Greensboro Public Library.