18 Oct 2017

Blog Tour: The Innocence Treatment by Ari Goelman – Review and Giveaway!

Posted in Blog Tour, Giveaways |

The Innocence Treatment

Author: Ari Goelman

Publication Date: October 17th, 2017

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Pages: 304

Formats: Hardcover, ebook

Synopsis: You may believe the government protects you, but only one girl knows how they use you.

Lauren has a disorder that makes her believe everything her friends tell her–and she believes everyone is her friend. Her innocence puts her at constant risk, so when she gets the opportunity to have an operation to correct her condition, she seizes it. But after the surgery, Lauren is changed. Is she a paranoid lunatic with violent tendencies? Or a clear-eyed observer of the world who does what needs to be done?

Told in journal entries and therapy session transcripts, The Innocence Treatment is a collection of Lauren’s papers, annotated by her sister long after the events of the novel. A compelling YA debut thriller that is part speculative fiction and part shocking tell-all of genetic engineering and government secrets, Lauren’s story is ultimately an electrifying, propulsive, and spine-tingling read.

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The Innocence Treatment was a book that started out a little bit slow for me, but by the time I had gotten a third of the way through it, I was completely hooked and loving the entire story.

This is such a unique book. The synopsis is something that I hadn’t seen around before, so I was rally looking forward to diving into it. As usual, I was a little hesitant to start something with such a different kind of premise and layout than your traditional novel, but I’m really glad that I just dove into this before reading any reviews or anything.

When I said something about the layout and format of this, I’m talking about how it isn’t written like a traditional novel, but more like a series of reports, transcripts of conversations, etc. There aren’t really any specific “chapters” going on in this book, which is pretty neat. I know a lot of authors are choosing to write their books in this format more and more lately, but I can’t even begin to tell you how much this makes me happy – it’s so incredibly different and helps the reader get a look at the events in a bunch of different ways.

Lauren’s character was so different than I had expected. I expected her to be this really sweet, timid girl, but she is so much different and I really found myself connecting with her.

I felt like the book really jumped around in terms of dates a bit, so it’s important to pay attention to the documents and such when they are listed. I didn’t at first and started getting confused, so I had to go back and look at them again to make sure.

I found that when I was first starting out reading this, I had to fully concentrate and use all of my attention for the book so I could get a better understanding of what was going on. Normally when I start a new book, I can do other things while reading. After a while, though, i found that The Innocence Treatment really pulled me in and I couldn’t stop reading – I had to see what was going to happen next.

This is a really captivating read and I highly recommend it for pretty much anyone who likes a little something different in YA. Its fun, it’s engaging, and it’s unique. I would definitely read this one again!

Note: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

I’m Ari Goelman. I write fantasy novels. Stories, too.

My latest novel, due out in October, 2017, is The Innocent Treatment. Lauren Fielding is a sixteen-year-old high school student with a cognitive disability – she believes everything her friends tell her, and she believes that everyone is her friend. A cutting edge medical treatment helps Lauren, but after the treatment her mental condition soon veers into paranoia. Or does it? The Innocent Treatment comes out in October, 2017, but in the meantime you can read (a little) more about Lauren here. (You can also pre-order a copy here.)

My first novel, The Path of Names came out a few years ago. It’s a middle grade fantasy / murder mystery / ghost story. You can read lots more about it here. Or you could just read the book. Honestly, that’s probably a better idea

Here’s my blog and here’s a list of the short stories I’ve published, many of which you can read online for free.