I couldn't get into it, so my review is biased by there. The beginning didn't capture my interest, the characters didn't make me care and I couldn't bring myself back into the story. I gave it 25% according to my Kindle progress bar and I wasn't engaged by the characters or world like I thought I would be.

Two stars is because the concept is amazing and the writing is well done. I think this book was just not for me.

This was a great book that I wish had been 2-3 times longer than it was. It had me hooked from page 1. The last page came way too soon.

The author builds the background conditions, and our characters, as living in the United States after there have been 2 “uprisings”. The conditions are pretty dire. For a time after the 1st uprising, the power grid went down, the Government shut down, we infer that martial law was declared because the story mentions “troops everywhere”. The Department of Security, Defense, and Well-Being has enacted a law known as “The Emergency Act” which allows greatly heightened surveillance and prosecution OF the American people BY the Government.

Living under these conditions, in the year 2031, begins actions that are referenced in the story, it has been 10 years.

This is the story of Lauren C. Fielding, a 16 year old girl, and the experimental brain surgery that she was told would “fix” her “imperfect” brain. She was told it would make her smarter > make her normal. This is the story of how she became “The Innocent Girl”.

After brain surgery, Lauren is under care of a Psychologist. She is confined in a “facility”. She is kept either sedated and/or physically restrained whenever she is to interact with her care givers and her Psychologist. She is said to be having paranoid delusions.
But is she?
Or is it all true?

The Innocent Girl. The girl who awakens the American people to the reality of the acts of the
U.S. Department of Security, Defense, and Well-Being against it's own citizens.

Great book for Young Adult readers and older. Thank You Netgalley and author, Ari Goelman for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I just couldn't get into this book. I can see it appealing to readers that enjoyed The Jenna Fox books

This was an interesting concept, but nothing really /happened./
Lauren was waiting for something to happen, and it didn't, and I guess that was kind of the point, but the lack of even pseudo-scientific terms made it difficult for me to suspend my disbelief.
That said, I will still add this one to ALL the high school carts. It's going to be a solid addition to sci-fi/dystopian fiction collections, which are still incredibly popular, and the fact that it's a stand-alone basically sells itself.

The beauty of the epistolary novel is that it allows you to dig into the private thoughts of a character, and makes the book feel more real. The Innocence Treatment handles this so well that I sometimes felt like I was reading a nonfiction book, but set in an alternate universe. It is extremely well-structured, alternating between diary entries from a younger Lauren, to the present-day Lauren as she discusses these entries with a therapist. Geolman managed to give each character their unique voice, but also to keep the different formats from blending into one another.

For instance, Lauren's diary entries are annotated by her sister, and readers can clearly see the different writing styles between the two sisters. The therapy sessions are written down as a conversation between the two characters, and you can recognize (especially further in the book) that Lauren's voice is her own, recognizable from her diary entries, while the therapist's is his. It's also interesting to see the point of views from different characters, and how they think of one another.

The content itself grabbed my attention early on and held onto it throughout the entire story. With the formatting of the novel, we get many unreliable narrators, and this keeps you guessing until the very end about how the book will be wrapped up. It is also a dystopia, but the story revolves more around Lauren's life within this world, and doesn't only revolve around her fighting this dystopia. It contains a story about a family affected by constraints of this supervised world, without necessarily revolving around how they are all working to suppress the regime. It was refreshing to read!

Honestly, though, this book makes me wish I was still in university so I could dissect it through an essay on the difficulty of mastering the epistolary style and its strength if done correctly. Geolman wrote what became one of my favourite books of 2017 and I highly recommend it.

I'd like to thank Roaring Brook Press and Netgalley for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

There was something irresistible about this novel and I can´t quite figure out what that was for me. I don´t know if it was the format or the morally ambiguous characters, the unique plot or the government behind the scenes. Or maybe it was all of those things combined. All I know is that somewhere along the way I fell in love with this book and I don´t think I will ever turn back.

The Innocence Treatment fascinated me in a way I hadn’t been fascinated in along time. I got caught up in these characters lives and how controlled everything is. I even got caught in the increasing violence and outbursts of action. This book slowly but surely completely sucked me into its world. I can’t sing this books praises enough.

This book is best when most of it is a mystery so all I am going to say is that I loved it and if you love books with unique formats mixed with terror and mystique then you should definitely pick this book up. I 100% recommend it.

First let me say that I absolutely love an epistolary book, so this was a joy for me to read. There are journal entries, written video commentaries, footnotes, and therapy transcripts. Perhaps it was just me, but this book was reminiscent of "Flowers For Algernon" by the amazing Daniel Keys. That in itself made me love this book. They are both written in the epistolary format and they are both about people having their mind "advanced." This story was, of course, more futuristic as it was set post-2030. The story is being shared by Evelyn, Lauren's older sister. Lauren could not tell when people were lying. She believed everything she was told. Her surgery was supposed to make her gain the ability to know that not everything people say is the truth. However, Lauren becomes so aware of lies that she learns of a "Department" secret agenda. The Department is never totally explained as are other clandestine ideas in the book, but that really takes nothing away from the story. If anything it makes it all that more mysterious. I read this book in two sittings over the course of a weekend! This is officially one of my top 25 books. Again, my biased love of Flowers For Algernon and my perceived similarities of the two gave it a helping hand into that top 25. This is a 5-star book for me. I do not give them lightly,

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2140730155. Excellent young adult novel.

A terrifying dystopian extension of the Homeland Security Act, the Emergency Act allows the Department to imprison anyone suspected of anti-Department sentiments or activities to be arrested and erased from society, but Lauren just thinks it's great that the government cares so much about keeping us safe! Lauren is teenage-going-on-four, intellectually normal, but naive and gullible to the extreme. After receiving brain surgery to help her be more normal, Lauren suddenly realizes how messed up the world is. Her "friends" are fakes, the Department makes no sense, and the "nice" doctor that is keeping an eye on Lauren's condition has ulterior motives. Lauren's new clarity is labeled paranoia, but is it paranoia if they really are out to get you?
So many exciting twists and turns, with commentary on not just high school, parents, and today's government but on society as a whole. Fabulous book!

I received a copy of this book to read and review from Netgalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group. All opinions are my own.

When I initially requested this book from Netgalley I thought it was merely a story about a girl who had surgery which cured her brain disorder that caused her to be gullible and not recognize sarcasm. While that was partially what this story was about it was also much more than that. Now that idea alone would have been incredibly interesting. But add in the super strict government and this story was incredibly more interesting than I originally anticipated.

Lauren made for an amazing main character and narrator. As she began to be able to detect sarcasm and lies I was immensely saddened for her. The realization that people were laughing at her and not with her, or that her sister didn't want to walk home with her nearly had me in tears. The transformation after surgery made her incredibly perceptive and led to interesting thought about what white lies we believe because it is easier that way.

The plot was amazingly well thought out. The Department and all of its regulations were explained thoroughly, but not overly so that it bogged down the story or made it boring. It is believable to see how our country could go into that kind of state after an emergency, especially when you consider The Patriot Act that came after 9/11. When people are really scared the idea of more government security sounds comforting, not restrictive.

As for the romance.. I could see the appeal to Sasha. He was honest with her about who he was, even if she might not like the idea of an informant following her around. At times though, his motives were not entirely pure and I'm glad that she didn't blindly trust him.

This is one of the best novels that I have read in a while. I would suggest it to anyone who likes YA with a touch of science fiction. I would definitely pick up anything else written by Ari Goelman

This one didn't resonate well with me. While the premise was interesting - a teenage girl who is a science experiment, believing anything you tell her - I felt the plot got too messy at times. In certain aspects, there were too many details and in other aspects, not enough. A significant amount of time is spent on sharing minor details of Lauren's thought process while the actual specifics and motives behind why she has her "condition" are thrown at the reader in earnest in the last few chapters. The pacing and sharing of information to the reader seemed very off to me and I had a difficult time staying interested.

Comprised of a series of journal entities and notes, The Innocence Treatment was better than I anticipated.

Lauren is a teenager that suffered from a mental disability who undergoes a surgical procedure that gives her cognitive abilities she did not previously have.

Lauren's very genuine character worked well with the contrived reality she faced. No one was really who they originally appeared to be and watching their true selves be revealed throughout the book was an interesting parallel as Lauren becomes stronger and self assured.

I would have liked more background on certain aspects like the second uprising, how Lauren has successfully remained hidden for almost a decade, and more of what happens with Sasha but I was pleased with what Goelman did reveal and satisfied enough with the conclusion.

“There are some lies it’s nicer to believe.”

So Lauren had a medical condition where she pretty much believed everything everyone told her, all the time, always. Think William’s Syndrome minus the teeth problems and the supravalvular aortic stenosis. But then Lauren gets an an operation that cured her of her extreme naïveté. Now she sees the world as it really is – she can tell when people are lying to her. And her world sucks. It sucks a lot. She lives five minutes into the future (that 2031 is not that far away – only fourteen years – frightens me a little. I mean, I still have a hard time believing that the 1997 was 20 years ago…#harrypotter20) in a dystopian United States under the thumb of a shadowy government referred to as “The Department.” There’s all sorts of nods to uprisings and other calamities that took place in the 2010s and 2020s, and apparently kids in 2031 aren’t familiar with Harry Potter or Star Wars. That threw me out of the story a bit, because there is no way that will ever happen. I’m sure they’ll still be releasing Star Wars movies in 2031. JKR will probably release another book from the Potterverse come 2031. And I, being…much older than I am now in 2031, will still buy it.

Anyway, life in 2031 is awful and Lauren is only just now becoming conscious of it. The story is told in the form of her journal entries, entries written a decade after-the-fact by Lauren’s sister, transcripts of interviews between Lauren and her therapist, and so on. Pay attention to the dates of each entry, as it skips around a bit. The story starts out strong, but as it progresses it slows down. I binged through the first 100 pages in less than a day but it took me two additional days to make it through the remainder.

I did enjoy the characters in this book a lot, though. As a person on the autism spectrum, I related to Lauren hard. As a kid, I used to believe everything people told me, too…now it’s the exact reverse and for the most part I don’t believe anything anyone tells me. There’s a happy medium in there somewhere I should probably strive towards, but…eh. Too lazy and being contrary is fun. “Do normal people feel that way when they see their friends? Is this maybe a side effect of the therapy—that I might be getting too paranoid? Or is this real? How do normal people tell the difference?” Oh, Lauren, welcome to my entire life.

Also: Lauren is smart in insisting on keeping her hair short so no one can grab it during a fight. I never got that about action movies/TV shows/books where the heroines would be fighting with their long hair flowing. First off: won’t it get in your face and impair your ability to see? Second: if I were their opponent, first thing I’d do is just grab fistful of that hair and not let go. Wear your hair up or wear it short, ladies, if you’re going to get into a fight.

Wonderful Dystopian story with shades of Flowers for Algernon!