Hey Bookworms!
Welcome to my stop on the The Innocence Treatment Blog Tour! I am excited to be posting a Excerpt + the Giveaway.
The Innocence Treatment Info
Title: THE INNCOENCE TREATMENT
Author: Ari Goelman
Pub. Date: October 17, 2017
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Pages: 304
Formats: Hardcover, eBook
Find it: Amazon, B&N, iBooks, TBD, Goodreads
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.
About the Author
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.
Excerpt
Case Notes of Dr. Finlay Brechel
December 2, 2031
The subject, Lauren Fielding, is a sixteen-year-old girl. Skinny, verging on gaunt, but muscular. Postoperative scars still visible through crew-cut hair. A far cry from her preoperative photos three months ago, in which she was a slightly plump redhead with shoulder-length hair, smiling broadly in every picture.
According to her medical chart, she remanded herself to the custody of this facility twenty-three days ago, about two months after being treated here for a preexisting disability. Neither the details of her initial disability, nor the course of treatment, are entirely clear to me, but as far as I can tell, her disability had both cognitive and behavioral components. (Her medical papers repeatedly mention “modified oligodendrocytes”—I have no real idea what that means. I know oligodendrocytes are a type of brain cell that connect different parts of the brain, but I can’t imagine that it’s possible to deliberately modify such tiny, poorly understood cells. Ah, to be a neuroscientist instead of a humble psychologist…)
I have sent Dr. Corbin a note asking for more details regarding Ms. Fielding’s treatment and case history, but I’m not entirely sure I’ll understand any additional details she provides. It seems to me that Corbin is operating somewhere on the frontiers of brain science with her treatment of Ms. Fielding, while my understanding is stuck in 2024 or so.
What I do know is that Ms. Fielding is currently exhibiting pronounced signs of paranoid delusions. I believe these delusions are responsible for the multiple violent episodes she’s initiated since coming to this facility. Due to previous assaults on past therapists and orderlies (including a particularly violent one on the orderly Eric Schafer, who she mentions so favorably in her first journal entry), she is heavily restrained when we meet.
Giveaway Time
3 winners will receive a finished copy of THE INNOCENCE TREATMENT, US Only.
Rafflecopter Giveaway
Tour Schedule
Week One:
10/9/2017- A Dream Within A Dream– Excerpt
10/10/2017- It Starts at Midnight– Review
10/11/2017- BookHounds YA– Guest Post
10/12/2017- Savings in Seconds– Review
10/13/2017- Books at Dawn– Excerpt
Week Two:
10/16/2017- Howling Libraries– Review
10/17/2017- YA and Wine– Interview
10/18/2017- Here’s to Happy Endings– Review
10/19/2017- Kendra Loves Books– Review
10/20/2017- Lisa Loves Literature– Interview
Until next time,
Hey guys!
Valkyries have one great responsibility: to return immortals to the afterlife by slaying them. As a Valkyrie, Malin has always known that the balance of the world rests on her ability to carry out orders. But when Malin discovers that her mother spared the life of an immortal who was destined to die, her world is thrown into chaos.
A healer who cannot be healed . . .
It’s a new day in the Empire. Tyrus has ascended to the throne with Nemesis by his side and now they can find a new way forward—one where they don’t have to hide or scheme or kill. One where creatures like Nemesis will be given worth and recognition, where science and information can be shared with everyone and not just the elite.
Ever since last year’s homecoming dance, best friends-turned-best enemies Zorie and Lennon have made an art of avoiding each other. It doesn’t hurt that their families are the modern day, Californian version of the Montagues and Capulets.
Eighteen-year-old twins Adina and Tovah have little in common besides their ambitious nature. Viola prodigy Adina yearns to become a soloist—and to convince her music teacher he wants her the way she wants him. Overachiever Tovah awaits her acceptance to Johns Hopkins, the first step on her path toward med school and a career as a surgeon.
Matilda Castillo has always followed the rules, but when she gets injured senior year, she’s sure her dreams of becoming a contemporary dancer have slipped away. So when Tilly gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend the summer with a New York dance troupe, nothing can stop her from saying yes—not her mother, not her fears of the big city, and not the commitment she made to Georgetown. Tilly’s mother allows her to go on two conditions: one, Tilly will regularly visit her abuela in New Jersey, and two, after the summer, she’ll give up dancing and go off to college.
Anna is everything her identical twin, Jess, is not. The same on the outside, yet so completely different inside—it’s hard to believe that the girls are even sisters, let alone twins. But they are. And they tell each other everything.
Books at Dawn 