Clean (2011) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Jason: One of the teenagers in Group.
• Olivia: A teenager in Group.
• Christopher: One of the teenagers in Group.
• Kelly: Sex addict, alcoholic, the "pretty one"
• Shirley: Group counselor, very direct
• Lilana: Night AC, she is responsible for making sure all the patients are in their rooms and being good overnight
• Eva: Teenager in Group.
• Mrs. Ford: Jason's mother
• Sophie: Add a description of this character.
• Tom
• Todd: Crystal meth supplier to Christopher
• Dr. Jacoby: The doctor running the rehab where the main characters are living for the duration of the book
• Sandra Bullock

Quotes edit see section history

• “Denial is not a river in Egypt”

  motivational poster

• “I've heard the statistic that only 10 percent of us stay sober for a year after graduatin. What about the other 90 percent?”

  Kelly

• “I remember being a little kid and imagining everything different, myself different. How did I get the idea in my head at age eight that everything was better somewhere else? Why would a child have a hole inside that can’t get full no matter what she does? The real world could never make me happy, so I retreated to the world inside my head. And as I grew, as the real world proved itself more and more painful, the fantasy world expanded.”

  Kelly

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• This is a disease where the medicine that gives relief is the same thing that kills you.

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• And then you are told to pick the lesser of two evils, so you drink the poison that promises the slower death because anything is better than staying empty. Do you remember? Do you remember the world before the poison?

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• The need. The desperation. And the fear. The fear. That this pain is all you’ll feel for the rest of your life.

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• Do you remember? Do you remember being solid? Do you remember life before the hole? Before you were empty and needed to be filled? There was a time when everything was enough. There was a time you didn’t try to get out of your own skin. Remember.

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• Imagine trying to live without air. Now imagine something worse.

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• now an almost-life plucked out, the size of a pecan. There was now a tiny, little death. A gaping nowhere. Another wasteland to be filled. Just desert. Tundra. Lifeless and windburned. Just the pieces of a life that needed refitting.

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• between addicts and Normies. Somewhere along the line we got stuck on this roller coaster that only knows how to go to the highest up and the lowest low. We get high so we can feel invincible and perfect, but the feeling never lasts. Gravity always wins, and we fall fast, to a place lower and darker than many people will probably ever know. And the crazy thing is that this is just normal for us. We cycle through these extremes all the time, and it’s become as natural as breathing. Exhausting, but natural.

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• you couldn’t take me like he did, couldn’t hurt me like he did.

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• what it wants, it takes over. It’s like the other part of me disappears, the part of me that wants to be good, and there’s nothing left but this demon on a rampage, and the good part of me just hides and tries to stay out of the way.

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• This world is not built for perfection. That is the first lesson. So God invented things like cancer to put us in our place. No one is innocent. God takes beautiful women away from their daughters, takes a father’s soul with her, and leaves a ghost to raise a girl and teach her how to be empty.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Seattle

First Sentence edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Amy Reed (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PZ7.R2462 2011
• Dewey: Fiction

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Younger readers should definitely wait to read this one. There's a lot of strong language as well as drug and alcohol references. This book at the very least is suitable for mature 15-year-olds.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Teens › Social Issues