Between the Chapters Book Club discussion

While THE LOST GIRLS OF WILLOWBROOK explores the social injustices of the Willowbrook State School, it is also a story about a young woman in search of her sister. Would you also have gone to Willowbrook in search of a loved one?

No. Willowbrook was run like our Veteran's Hospitals. We are brainwashed as kids to be respectful, accept authority, follow the rules and that's where it stops. We are not taught what to do when there are obvious problems. Child abuse: Family members won't get involved and as a society people have the gull to complain about social services and law enforcement? The answer to your question was no. But, I'm learning how to cut the red tape. Willowbrook atrocities happens every day in the US.

No, I probably would not have gone, because I believe during that time I would have been taught not to go.

No, it was one of the many things that annoyed me about this book.

Star wrote: "No. Willowbrook was run like our Veteran's Hospitals. We are brainwashed as kids to be respectful, accept authority, follow the rules and that's where it stops. We are not taught what to do when th..."

That’s a great point about systems and how so often we’re taught to follow certain rules/expecations even when it might be causing harm to others.

Readers, would you say books like THE LOST GIRLS OF WILLOWBROOK and others similar to it are a way for us to try and maybe correct wrongs through the lens of the main characters? -Admin KJ

I do, I believe the more society knows about the wrong doings at any facility or institutionalized setting that it gives power to change.