Middle of Nowhere

The Middle of Nowhere is about a troubled 15-year-old girl, Lexie Crockett, who enters a residential treatment program somewhere in the Western United States. Based on personal experiences, the novel tells of the sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious adventures of the thousands of girls who live away from home in residential facilities. As events unfold, Lexie finds a bond with the other girls and with Annie Salinas, a gifted counselor, who helps her get closer to her goal of going home. Parents of some of the girls visit the program, and struggle with finding the line that is always shifting between understanding the girls' problems and holding them accountable for their actions. When a large company moves to buy the facility, the staff resists-and the girls find some ways of their own to challenge the new owners. Each of the girls brings her own background to this challenge-broken homes, drug addiction, mental and emotional instability, along with ingenuity, resilience, and a fierce desire for independence. More than 14,000 girls live in such programs, and the book makes painfully clear how difficult their lives are-and why some of them succeed.