by Peter Hoeg
First published 1995
Peter stands in the corridors of Biehl's Academy, a private school that claims to help problem children but operates more like a prison. He has been moved from institution to institution his entire life. The administrators tell him this is his last chance. Peter meets Katarina and August, two other students who don't fit the school's rigid system. Katarina struggles with her own dark past while August battles learning difficulties that the teachers refuse to understand. Together they begin to see through the school's facade of respectability. The headmaster Biehl runs experiments on the students under the guise of education. Peter realizes they must document what happens behind closed doors before more children suffer. The three friends face a choice between silence and speaking truth about institutional abuse. This is a story about children who refuse to disappear quietly into a system designed to break them.
Genres: fiction, drama, abuse, coming-of-age, crime, contemporary, psychological-thriller, academia
Vibes: dark, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, institutional-corruption, speaking-truth-to-power
Setting: Biehl's Academy
277 pages · Paperback · Bantam Books of Canada Ltd
Content warnings: abuse, child-abuse