WOW.....What a powerful and intense read!
A horrendous institution for the mentally challenged. An institution that tortured the patients that dd not have the staff or resources to take proper care of them.! Such a shock to the whole world!
I highly recommend this book as it is a real eye-opener!
Thank you, Ellie Marie Wiseman for continuing to amaze me with your talent for holding me captive with your superb writhing talent! Also thank you Net Galley for an early copy!
I highly recommend this book!
4 1/2 Stars

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advanced ebook!

This book was riveting, I almost couldn't put it down, but I do not read fast enough to finish a book in one setting (unfortunately). I enjoy a book based in truth, and this one did not disappoint! After reading this, I had to look up information about the real Willowbrook, what a mind-boggling facility. It's horrible to think that people were treated in such a way, at one time.

This book was just such a difficult read for me. It was successful in that it made me feel very uncomfortable, and I appreciated learning about the disturbing historical story. But it would be hard for me to recommend this book because it was so hard to read.

The Lost Girls of Willowbrook by Ellen Marie Wiseman is another fabulous work of historical fiction, something this author excels at. What sets this novel apart is that it’s seeped in a dark part of American history about the Willowbrook State School. This school purported to be a state school for “intellectual disabilities” but instead was a place of cruel treatment and neglect.

Wiseman crafted a story of sisters, identical twins called Sage and Rose, that wrapped itself around the atrocities at this school. Sage overhears her stepfather tell a friend that Rose is alive, yet she is also missing from her school. Outraged, Sage, who was told Rose died six years ago, impulsively goes to visit her. What happens next is where the plot takes off into a harrowing journey of falsehoods, pain and suffering.

There was quite a bit of mystery and suspense in this book, and of course, some predictable moments as well. I was totally engrossed in the story yet sickened by the horror of this place.

It also gave me a clearer understanding of why many of these state homes closed, but sadly left the patients nowhere to go. I think book clubs will have a lot to discuss with this one.

I became a huge fan of Ellen Marie Wiseman after reading The Orphan Collector. That story blew me away. I waited with baited breath for her next one. The Lost Girls of Willowbrook is also an amazing read.

Although the situations in this story are very disturbing, they were very real and show the circumstances that 'undesirable' children, and adults, had to endure. Wiseman brings the traumatic truths to life with the story of Sage and her twin sister, Rosemary. What the two girls had to endure is shocking but the same things happened to others, over and over.

Woven into the story of life at Willowbrook is the mystery of what happened to Rosemary. As Sage tries to uncover the truth about her twin sister, she finds herself thrown into a world she never could have imagined.

Like Wiseman's other books, this one opened my eyes to a world that I knew very little about and served as reminder that people need to be compassionate to all. Based on a true-life place, the Willowbrook State School, it is hard to imagine that people were treated like this. Thankfully the truth was uncovered and people's situations became better.

Wiseman does a wonderful job of taking a very hard and disturbing time in our history and creating an enjoyable story that educates us all. I highly recommend The Lost Girls of Willowbrook.

Unfortunately this book was not for me, it was a bit slower than I would like and it just didn't hold my attention. I am sure other people will love it!

Growing up in Upstate New York the nightmare that is Willowbrook has always loomed in the haunting past of our state. Kudos to Ellen Marie Wiseman for taking important historical events about those whom are often forgotten and putting the words to paper in a fascinating story.

The Lost Girls of Willowbrook is about a girl, Sage, who lost her sister, originally believing her dead, but comes to learn that she was actually committed to Willowbrook State School. Not knowing what to expect, Sage sets out to find her sister, Rosemary, but what she learns will change her life in ways she never could have imagined.

What an eye opening view into what went on behind closed doors of one of the largest institutions that was supposed to help the mentally ill. This was a terribly difficult read - I had to set it down multiple times for having my stomach in knots and to tame my gag reflexes. It was almost overly detailed in areas, where I had no problem imagining the conditions in which the residents lived and the horrors they faced. I could smell, hear and taste what was going on inside those walls. It was like a train wreck from the very beginning - I didn't want to see what was happening, but could not look away. I'm always in awe of authors who can pair real life situations with fictional characters, mixing true history with urban legend and their own fictitious storylines. Ellen Marie Wiseman did an incredibly impressive job with this.

This is a book that will draw readers in with the premise but will also make them feel dread and trepidation as they turn the page to learn what happens next. Sage and Rosemary are identical twins. They look exactly alike, but they are quite different. Unlike Sage, Rosemary has a mental disorder. It causes her to scream, cower and act erratically. The girls’ mother and step-father tell 10-year-old Sage that her twin has died of pneumonia when in reality, they have committed her to Willowbrook, an insane asylum.

Six years later, Sage is living alone with her step-father when she overhears a phone call from Willowbook saying her sister is missing. Sage is totally shocked. How can she be missing when she is deceased? This sets off a harrowing mission to try and find her twin. She will go to Staten Island and offer to assist in the search, but things go horribly awry and she finds herself becoming a patient, presumed to be Rosemary.

It’s 1971 and Willowbrook is a place of horrors. Patients are treated miserably and Sage becomes a victim, not just of mistaken identity, but of frightening abuse. Told that the institution is a state school, Sage learns it’s just a dumping ground for the mentally ill. From the horrible food, the physical abuse, the drugging, the filth, the threats from the staff as well as the other patients, there is danger at every turn.

Based upon the real Willowbrook, this book takes us inside a monstrous facility that actually existed. Thousands were abused before the institution was finally shut down in 1987. Wiseman’s novel grabs hold of readers and never lets go. The tension will remain long after Sage’s story is over.

I found this a very hard book to read. Not because of bad writing or unrealistic plot or undeveloped characters. In fact the opposite applies here. It is extremely well researched, and written in a brutally honest manner, bringing to vivid life the conditions in which people with mental illnesses were subjected to. That this treatment went on well into the 1970s is so shocking and appalling I actually get ill thinking about it. I read this in one sitting with my stomach in knots and a lump in my throat. Not for the faint of heart or squeamish demeanor, it is a very realistic portrayal of the horrid conditions.
I recommend for historical fiction fans looking for an eye opening view of what went on behind the closed doors of some of the country's institutions that were supposed to help those that were mentally ill.
Thank you to the publishers at Kensington Books and to Net Galley for the free aRC, I am leaving my honest review in return.

First and foremost, I did really enjoy this novel. I sped through its 300+ pages quickly, and found myself incredibly immersed within the first couple of chapters.

I consider myself a bit of a true-crime aficionado, and as such I have heard of the Willowbrook State School before, but the first thing I did after finishing this book was freshen up my knowledge of all of the historical elements throughout. How this work of fiction, which has been compared to “Girl Interrupted meets American Horror Story” can possibly seem downright tame when compared to the reality of Willowbrook is truly a testament to the horrors that were committed by everyone involved, from the immediate on-hand staff, to the highest levels of management.

My only true complaint is the genre category it was placed in, originally considered a “New Adult” title, I feel like it is much more at home within the thriller/horror genres. Ellen Marie Wiseman does an incredible job of mixing true history, urban legend, and her own fictitious storyline. Although this was my first introduction to Wiseman’s work, I can guarantee it won’t be my last.


Thank you so much to Netgalley and Kensington Books for the opportunity to read and review this title.

I loved the premise of this book and that it's based on the real life horrors at Willowbrook, but it fell flat for me. I didn't love the author's writing style, because everything was overly detailed and that made the events less imaginative for me.

This well-written and well-researched novel looks at the true horrors in institutions for people with mental disabilities and the way that they were treated in these institutions. It's difficult to read in parts because of the abuse of these people but I think it's a very important story that needs to be read so that we can all make sure that facilities like this never exist again.

It's 1971 when sixteen year old Sage overhears her stepfather discussing the phone call that he'd just received from Willowbook School and the report that his step daughter Rosemary was missing. Sage demanded information from him and found out that her mother had lied to her six years earlier when she was told that her twin sister had died. She's shocked that Rosemary is in an institution and that she hadn't been told because she knew that she's have visited so that Rosemary knew she was loved. After a night out with friends, she decides to go to Willowbrook to help in the search for her sister. Her purse gets stolen from the bus and she has no way to prove her identity and when she shows up at the school, the administrators were sure that she was Rosemary and put back into her room. Even though she tried to explain, they didn't know that Rosemary had a twin plus Sage had no identification so no one paid any attention to her explanations. Her life in the institution is terrible. At first she thinks that because this is a school, she will have classes to attend and is shocked when she finds out that Willowbrook is just a dumping ground for people with mental disabilities. Sage finds out that the school is overcrowded and filled with neglected, over medicated people who are fed and treated horribly by a staff that just doesn't care about the patients. Will Sage find someone she can trust who will believe that she is not Rosemary?

This was a tough book to read about the way that people in this institution were treated. The most interesting part of the story was seeing the changes in Sage. When she first went to try to find her sister, she was a party girl - more interested in spending time with her friends and having a few drinks. Her time in Willowbrook made her a strong and resilient young woman determined to help the residents of the school.

I watched the 1972 expose of Willowbrook school done by Geraldo Rivera and it was a horrific look at he way mentally disabled people were treated at this so called school. We need to make sure that we learn from our pasts and nothing like this is allowed to happen again.

A must read for historical fiction and thriller fans! This is not being marketed as a suspense read but it should be! I did not know about Willowbrook before reading this book and it was fantastic. I went on a deep dive after this book to learn this was a real place with truly horrific conditions. I could not fathom this was a state-supported facility for the treatment of developmentally disabled children from 1947-1987. I especially could not believe that Senator Robert F. Kennedy brought this place and the conditions to the public in 1965 and it still did not shut down for another 22 years!

This book was suspenseful, it had a great mystery element, and it was unputdownable. It did read a touch long, but the history and descriptions of the Willowbrook facility were necessary. This was not a 'school' as the public were led to believe but was a concentration camp. It was devastating and heartbreaking what the residents had to endure. They were living in inhumane conditions with a lack of access to proper nutrition, personal health and hygiene, and just basic comfort and human relationships. Some even endured physical and sexual abuse and experimental treatments. The main character, Sage, made a few questionable decisions and came off as very naive, but I also did have to remind myself this was the 70s and she was a teenager without strong parental support!

For a while now I’ve been trying to request books only from authors I know, or books I’ve heard a bit about, because I’ve been trying to avoid this: a book that I end up just not caring much about either way.

The Lost Girls of Willowbrook did sound like a good read, and a story woven around real events is usually interesting. The background here is the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, the conditions and practices of which prompted it to be called a ‘snake pit’ by RFK and to be exposed by Geraldo Rivera; and Cropsey, the urban legend come true. The fiction part concerns Sage, a teenager who ends up being mistaken for her missing sister and locked away in Willowbrook.

Unfortunately, I found the writing quite unsophisticated and the plot highly predictable. It also stood out to me that there were several instances of very old-fashioned and in bad taste vocabulary – and not just in dialogue. I realise now that it’s labelled ‘New Adult’ and I only recently became aware of what that means. It’s basically Young Adult that deals with more adult themes, usually not high school or teenagers. I have nothing against YA, I like it in fact, but I don’t see why NA exists; so far it seems to me to mean books that are not as well written as either YA or most general adult fiction.

I will think twice before picking up another ‘New Adult’ book as this was disappointing.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

Historical fiction, like any other form of fiction, has its rulebook, and the author flouts it at his or her peril. While the author can --- and almost certainly does --- take liberties with history, there are serious, prudential limitations in doing so. One can’t, for example, write about Davy Crockett and then not have him die at the Alamo. (Well, you can, but then you’ve left the precincts of historical fiction for the broad pastures of alternative history, which in turn has its own rules.)

But it’s not just characters that matter; it’s settings as well. The author has to be honest about where he or she is in history, and what it was like. This does not mean that if you are writing a Regency romance, you have to be incredibly specific with the not-so-romantic features of Regency history, such as what going to the dentist would have been like. There’s nothing wrong with putting a gloss on history --- most of the time. But there are places, times and events that are 100 percent serious business, and anyone who writes about them has an obligation to tell the truth in full. Ellen Marie Wiseman understands this, and to her credit, she has turned out a portrait of Willowbrook State School that is unvarnished, painful and startlingly clear.

You could say that Willowbrook was a snake pit --- Robert F. Kennedy said so once, and everyone ignored him --- but that doesn’t cover it. The snakes can’t help being there; they’re just snakes. You could say that Willowbrook was one of Dante’s circles of hell, but that doesn’t cover it either. It’s demons that run hell, and they torment the souls of the damned because that’s what demons do. Willowbrook was awful beyond the power of mere adjectives to describe. It was run by people who thought they knew what they were doing, and went to bed every night thinking that they were doing good in this world.

They were not.

Wiseman contrives to put her narrator, Sage Winters, inside Willowbrook. Sage initially has the idea that a “state school” has classrooms, teachers and books --- and finds out that this is just the first of the cynical lies that surround the place. She soon learns the essential truth --- that Willowbrook is a lonely citadel where abuse and neglect reign over a kingdom of misery. Or if that’s too poetic, it’s a place where people with mental illness and developmental and intellectual disabilities rot in their own filth. THE LOST GIRLS OF WILLOWBROOK is extremely graphic in this area, but it has to be. Anything else would be not only dishonest but also disrespectful.

Bringing the unquiet ghosts of Willowbrook to life is what this book does best, and if it didn’t do anything else, it would be worth your time. But there’s a story to be told here, and while it is undoubtedly compelling --- I lost a good part of a night’s sleep over it --- adding an undeniably creepy murder mystery to the mix seems a little forced. (Wiseman does portray Geraldo Rivera as one of the heroes of the story, and whatever you might think about his subsequent career, she gets this part exactly right.)

Willowbrook was bulldozed years ago; the property now hosts Staten Island College. Pennhurst --- a similar institution in Pennsylvania with its own terrible history --- is still there, crumbling and abandoned, and plays host to a haunted house attraction each Halloween when it’s not being pored over by TV ghost hunters.

The story of what happened in these places --- where good, well-meaning individuals immiserated thousands of the most vulnerable and fragile people for what they thought was the best of reasons --- is an American story that deserves to be told and retold. It’s a story that has to be taken seriously, and credit to Ellen Marie Wiseman for bringing Willowbrook back to the national consciousness.

Ellen Marie has knocked it out of the park once again. I was telling people about this book even before I finished it because the plot was so intriguing. Imagine being 16 years old and you discover that your twin sister, whom you thought had died was instead living in a group home for many years and now that twin sister is missing from that group home. Your mother is dead and your step-father doesn't care she is missing and you are just in shock she is alive! See, there is simply no way to get sucked into this plot, but there is more. I won't tell you the next part, but trust me, the plot just gets better from here. The only thing I would have done differently with this book was set aside enough time to finish it in one setting instead of over 3 days....I should have saved it for vacation. The plot of this book was creative and thrilling. Enjoy!

Sage and Rosemary Winters are identical twins and share a very close bond, as twins often do. When they were ten years old, the unthinkable happened and Rosemary died from pneumonia. Fast forward six years and Sage is sixteen years old and living with her stepfather, Alan. Sage’s mother died in a tragic car accident. And now Sage discovers a mind blowing secret that Alan has been keeping from her…Rosemary is alive!!! She was committed to the Willowbrook State School, which is a mental institution. Now will Sage be able to find her long lost sister?

What a great book! Ellen Marie Wiseman certainly did her homework on this story about the infamous Willowbrook State School. I am always up for a great historical fiction story and this one fits that bill perfectly. Based on true events, it is really troubling how mental health was managed 50 years ago.

The Lost Girls of Willowbrook is based on a true story and I think that's what makes it even more disturbing to read. It's dark and it's gritty but it's a gripping book about social injustice, survival and a fight to find out what happened.

Sage is sixteen and has just find out that her twin sister she was told died six years ago is alive and was committed to the Willowbrook State School, but she's gone missing. When Sage goes to try to find out more and help find her sister, she's mistaken for Rosemary and is a witness to the inhumane conditions that the children face. Sage fights to get herself out and figure out what happened to her sister.

The first part of the book is hard to read when Sage is mistaken for Rosemary and trying to convince people to let her out. The descriptions of the conditions were so hard to read and I think that the fact this took place in the 1970s and the book is based on a real investigation made it even harder. This story was Giraldo Rivera's break into investigative journalism and his story helped a lawsuit and the closing of the facility.

I read this with my bookclub in August and while we all agreed how heartbreaking this story was it was a book that will have a lasting impact. The Lost Girls of Willowbrook was released on August 30th and is on The New York Times bestseller list.

I recommend this book, especially for a book club discussion.

Ellen Marie Wiseman does it again, crafting a novel combining little known and disturbing events with fictional characters blended together for a fantastic riveting story. The Willowbrook State School mental institution in the 1970s is a great setting for this thriller of a storyline of a missing twin sister and a serial killer. She remains one of my favorite authors for adapting history with compelling characters that elicit all sorts of emotional reactions of the reader during the course of the book. This book was no exception--the overcrowded mental institution with no means of escape, a case of mistaken identity and a quest for a missing sibling was unputdownable.