Non-Fiction Highlights: The Elissas by Samantha Leach and Beautiful Trauma by Rebecca Fogg

The Elissas: Three Girls, One Fate and the Deadly Secrets of Suburbia by Samantha Leach
This is a book to read if you’re the sort of person who likes to find more things to read while you’re reading. I stopped and looked up books at least three times while inhaling this one!

This book hurt. I knew it was going to, but it still did.

When I was describing it to my friend, she was like… “Are you sure this is non-fiction?” And I can’t lie - I bought it because it was, and then when it arrived, I had to get online and double check! It’s a slim book, and it sounds like it could be fiction. The author is trying to find her way through her own grief and discover what happened to her best friend - and her best friend’s best friends.

All named Elissa (Alyssa and Alissa), the three were sent to boarding schools in the United States, as part of the Troubled Teen network, which is where they met. We follow the lives of each - how she ended up at the school, what happened once they left, and ultimately, how they died. It’s part memoir, part journalistic expose/exploration. There is clearly a lot of research that has gone into writing this book, and I appreciated the moments of not-quite-happy but almost nostalgia as family members and friend reminisced about the girls.

I won’t say too much more, as it’s a short book and I don’t want to give too much away. I will say that it gives a lot of insight into the lives of not only the Elissas, but also Samantha, the author, and how her relationship with and knowledge and understanding of herself changed over the years, in particular as she was writing. It’s beautifully written and left me wanting to read more and research more.

Content warnings: drug and alcohol abuse, self harm, death, overdoses, medication abuse, mental and emotional torture, forced containment of teenagers.

Beautiful Trauma by Rebecca Fogg
A memoir written by a woman who sustained a partial amputation of her hand via an exploding toilet at 2.30am? Uh, yes please! I had to pick this up; I love memoirs, I love medical memoirs, I love weird injuries. Thankfully she allayed my fears around a similar incident (sorry if you’re not the owner of a top-fed toilet cistern - side note, there are toilets out there in apartments that are fed by a main tank and a series of pipes?? Wild! Clearly I need to get out more), but this book has one of the most interesting structures I have seen (this seems to be a theme in the books I’m reading right now, so we shall see!).

While the whole book is a memoir, the chapters alternate between a chapter of memoir - as in, this is what happened, step by step, followed by a chapter that talks about the science behind what happened in the previous chapter. It’s fascinating; equal parts research project and creative non-fiction. The author keeps the science from becoming too overwhelming, so it’s accessible to all. I will warn however, that the gore factor is high. If you’re the sort who likes your insides on the inside, you may want to steer clear of this one, which is a shame, because it’s very good!

Overall Rating: 5 stars

Reviewed by Li

15 April 2024

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