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For other authors named Claire Fontaine, see the disambiguation page.

6 Works 608 Members 22 Reviews

Works by Claire Fontaine

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The book is great, an unexpected insight into teen programs.
 
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lynnwords | 16 other reviews | Jan 26, 2024 |
Claire and Mia Fontaine's dual memoir Comeback is about teenage daughter Mia's brush with street life and drug addiction, and mother Claire's efforts to save her. Claire has runaway Mia kidnapped and sends her to an unorthodox rehab facility in the Czech Republic, where an intensely structured, almost cult like program helps Mia deal with her long-buried issues, including her sexual abuse at the hands of her biological father. Claire, too, undergoes transformation as she attends therapeutic workshops and examines her own role in bringing about Mia's rebellious behavior. By the end, the memoir gets bogged down in therapy-speak, but, all in all, this is a moving look at the lengths a mother will go to in order to bring her daughter back from the brink of self-destruction.

Shortly before I finished this book and wrote the paragraph above, I did a bit of research into the Czech program Mia was in. Turns out it was part of the WWASP family of therapeutic "boarding schools", most of which were shut down in the 1990s and early 2000s due to allegations of child torture and abuse. The memoir's timeline is vague, but Wikipedia states that the Mia's program, "Morava", opened and was shut down in 1998. Nonetheless, Claire and Mia seem happy with the program's results. Now that I know about the controversies surrounding the program, Mia and Claire's story seems more like a defense of the WWASP "tough love" approach than anything else. Read with caution.
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akblanchard | 16 other reviews | Apr 24, 2019 |
Another great book! Mia is sexually abused by her 'old dad' in her early years but manages to grow up 'symptom free' until she runs away from home at 15 and gets into drugs- heavy duty, heroin, crack, etc. Her mother is on a mission to save her daughter's life, even sending her to Eastern Europe for treatment. The story follows their struggles through this hellish journey and they both recover.
 
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camplakejewel | 16 other reviews | Sep 27, 2017 |
I read this because a colleague gave it to me to read, in part because I am going through some tough times (though not quite this tough) with my own adolescent but also because it has some similarities to events in the book lender's own life. I was honored that she wanted me to know this about her, so I can't really be objective about the book and won't rate it.

I don't usually read things like this but it still felt formulaic to me and I found myself wondering what was real, what was truth, and what was a composite. Not that anything takes away from the books emotional impact, which is significant . And as parent, there are certainly feelings that ring true - from intense love to intense guilt - no matter what the circumstances.

It reads a little like an advertisement for certain kinds of troubled youth/teen recovery centers (one of which was under investigation for child abuse itself) which is a little troubling in and of itself.
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laurenbufferd | 16 other reviews | Nov 14, 2016 |

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