Fall of the Guardians

By Vanessa White

ISBN: 9781800167025

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind closed doors when a “difficult” teen gets sent away? Based on real-life events from the early 1990s, this book tells the harrowing story of Vanessa, who, at age 13, was one of those kids. She was ripped away from everything she knew and sent away to an abusive military boarding school for girls run by a religious cult that promised to fix these so-called “troubled teens.”    

Like most Troubled Teen Industry survivors, Vanessa and her surrogate four-year-old little sister, Jess, experienced unspeakable horrors no human should ever have to endure. But unlike most, they were able to do things no one else could. Along the way, Vanessa found family. She was the catalyst for the formation of the Guardians, a special unit in her program tasked with making the girls human again. With the help of her family and friends, Vanessa came of age while making a real difference to hundreds of other girls in an impossible situation – that is, until it all came crashing down as the Guardians fell.    

Find out what it took for them to survive their time in this cult, their successes and failures, how they finally escaped, and what came next, including a 2022 update on what happened to the girls and staff she wrote about over the ensuing years and a number of response letters from some of the others she wrote about.   

This powerful and heart-wrenching book is a must-read for anyone who has ever been or known a “difficult” teen, anyone who attended a Troubled Teen program, and especially for any parent who has sent away a difficult child or is thinking that sending their child away is the best or only option.  

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What people are saying about it...

“I spent two years in juvenile lock-up and later spent four years in Folsom State Prison as a debt collector and gang enforcer. Reading this book gave me the same feelings of suffocation as I get waking up from nightmares of being back in prison. The details of this book have a ring of truth to them that most books on prison life can’t come close to.” 

-Anonymous from California


 “I spent three years in a Religious Troubled Teen program. While the details of how the program ran are different, this book captures the mentalities like nothing else I have ever read.” 

-Kate from Idaho


 “I went to a troubled teen program and ended up with an 11-year-old surrogate little sister. I can’t imagine doing it with a four-year-old. I saw so much of myself in Vanessa and how she protected Jess. The “Letters from Home” chapter broke my heart in a way no other book ever has.” 

-Robin from Alabama 


 “I read this book three months after sending my daughter to a troubled teen program. I read this book in one night and was on a plane to get my daughter out the very next day.” 

-Mimi from Boston


 “The program I went to 12 years ago wasn’t nearly this bad, but it was only after my mother read this book that we were actually able to talk about what she put me through. I think we now have a shot at a relationship.” 

-Juliette from Vermont


"Dear Vanessa,

I have just finished reading your book, and I must say it is very powerful and emotional. The first two chapters, as well as the ones where Ms. Rawlings arrives, are definitely the most difficult to read. On chapter two, I had to stop a couple of times due to the nature of the punishments. I think what makes the book so powerful and horrifying is the realization that everything occurred in the real world; it was not made up. Considering how long this place existed and how many girls have come out of it completely broken, both mentally and physically, is absolutely heartbreaking. The scenes of torture are also very well described. I cannot even imagine how difficult it was to retrace all the memories and put them on paper. The scenes are written in a way that I can feel as if I am one of the girls observing the punishments, which seriously affects the readers. In short, this book has opened my eyes to a lot of things I did not even consider and has definitely changed the way I look at books.

This is not the type of book I would normally pick up to read just for pleasure; however, once I started reading it, I could not stop. I finished it within a few days, and I can assure you that most of my thoughts revolved only around this book for these past few days. It is definitely overpowering and magnetizing. My favorite part, I guess, were the chapters with Mr. S, as they show how you slowly learned what “love” is and how you gained a family. But I love how they also portray how you struggled with adjusting from that “tough love” to this new, normal love. I also really liked Chapter 13. I was crying like a baby, especially while reading Jess’s and Beth’s letters. I honestly could not think of any better way to finish this book. Sometimes, something you would never even consider picking up to read can turn out to be one of the most meaningful and powerful books you have ever read." 

-AK from Florida

Videos about the book

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Fall of the Guardians II:

The Book of Ericka

By Ericka Brown

Have you ever wondered what happens to the “difficult child” that gets sent away? Ericka was a member of the Church (cult) that ran the religious military program she was sent to. Even this status didn’t protect her from suffering horrid abuses at the hands of Church members, especially when she was targeted for being from the wrong sect of the Church.

Somewhere in all this horror, Ericka came of age as she became the founding leader of the Guardians, a special unit created to make life better for all the girls in her program.

Read about her successes and failures, how she learned to play the game as no one before her ever did, and her ultimate escape from this place as the Guardians fell.

Based on real-life events, this book covers the same general time frame as the original but from an extremely different perspective, as well as tells a lot of the backstories Vanessa didn't know.

This book includes a 2023 update on what happened to the girls and staff she wrote about over the ensuing years, several response letters from other program participants, and an interview with the former Dean of Students. What people are saying about it...

What people are saying about it...

 “I was 12 when I was sent to this program. I started at the tail end of the events of Vanessa’s book. I never met Ericka, and while I didn’t know Vanessa well, she was my intake buddy for my first few days of intake. As short as she was, she scared the hell out of me. She was not someone to be messed with – even the staff gave her a wide berth. Then she was just gone, and no one would talk about it. The Guardians were disbanded shortly after Vanessa left, but the rumors about them and what they did were epic. Stories about them were banned very early in my time. Until I read these books, I thought they were just legends. Learning about what went on during those years explains so much of what I went through. My three wishes are: I wish you didn’t sugarcoat so much of it; I really wish you talked more about the religious aspects; and I really, really wish you talked about how the program ended. I was there when it ended, and all I know is that suddenly we were put on a plane to go home and never allowed to talk about it.” 
- Ellie from Florida       

“I worked five years at a ranch for troubled youth. In this book, I saw almost every staff person I ever worked with and the majority of the kids as well. Where most of the first-person accounts from this industry treat the staff as villains and the kids as innocent victims, this book showed the range of staff and students in a way I have never before seen. I only wish we had a leader like Mr. S and a group like the Guardians. Then maybe we could have done better by those kids. Our leader wasn’t quite as bad as Ms Rawlings, but she wasn’t far off.”  
-Bobby from Colorado     

"I've never read two books like these. These women had such markedly different perspectives on what went on. These books chronicle just how good people can go mad with power in the right situation, how hard it is to keep that in check, and how systems can fall apart. The copious asides sprinkled throughout the book hint at just how much more there is to the story beyond what was told. Truly a great study on the human experience."
- Sara from Reddit  

“It’s so rare these days to find stories of regular, normal girls doing extraordinary things that you can actually relate to. While I never went to a program like this, my parents threatened to send me to military school on a regular. I could relate to almost everything Ericka wrote about, and I could see myself in every situation doing exactly what she did.”
-Maddie from Massachusetts