Publishers Weekly
01/11/2016
In this affecting memoir, Cooper recounts the horrifying abuse inflicted on her at an unlicensed residential treatment program in southern Utah. After Alex came out to her parents as a lesbian, they sent her to strangers who subjected her to physical and emotional torture and an orthodox version of Mormonism in hopes of making her realize her sexuality was a choice. The last third of the book recounts how Alex, with the help of a dedicated lawyer, managed to swim upstream against the Utah court system and gain the legal right to refuse reparative therapy. It’s harrowing to read how outsiders, including religious leaders, and her own parents ignored Alex’s various attempts to escape and constantly sided with her abusers. Even with Alex’s explanatory asides, some non-Mormon readers might be occasionally puzzled by cultural practices and terminology. The positive ending to her story (and the slim chances for such an ending in the first place) calls all readers to do more for vulnerable youth. Without offering any easy reconciliation between homosexuality and faith, Alex’s story provides an example of how to not be consumed by anger and hate toward an abusive version of religion. (Mar.)
Patheos Friendly Atheist
I commend Alex… her book is full of reflections and resolutions.
Logo NewNowNext
A 21-year-old gay woman is telling the harrowing tale of abuse and humiliation she faced at the hands of gay conversion therapists in Utah in her book Saving Alex.
Queerty
Saving Alex is a sobering reminder of the unresolved trauma still out there.
Mary Bonauto
Alex’s story is all too true for far too many LGBT young people who face a hostile family, religious tradition, or both. Thankfully, this is also a story of a brave young woman who received crucial support and expert legal assistance to retrieve her dignity, independence, and her family.
Chad Griffin
Alex Cooper’s story is a call to action - we must put a stop to this brutal practice of conversion therapy and ensure that every child is embraced for who they are in their homes, schools and communities.
Robbie Rogers
I empathize with Alex’s fear of losing everything important to her, but Alex’s story will help pave the road for more young people to accept who they are, and hopefully for families to understand how to better love their gay and lesbian children. A brave and important book.
Congresswoman Jackie Speier
Alex’s story is a gripping example of the reality too many LGBT youth face across the country. I am grateful Alex has shared her story, so others can see the dangers of ‘conversion therapy,’ and learn what LGBT youth need most of all: unconditional love and support.
Troy Williams
Alex Cooper fought a fierce battle for dignity, identity and family. Her courage led the State of Utah to recognize the fundamental human rights of gay teenagers. An inspiring story of a queer youth discovering her courage and raising her voice. In so doing, she liberates us all.
Kate Kendell
Alex’s engrossing and shocking story is the triumph of courage, authenticity and hope over shame, bigotry and ignorance. The nightmare of Alex’s story is a key reason we will soon succeed in ending the cruel and dangerous practice of conversion therapy.
Association of Mormon Letters
The story line in this autobiographical book, Saving Alex, would make a great soap opera. But the power of Alex’s story is in her strength and stamina in adversity, and the resolution wherein she finds peace with her parents.
Caitlin Ryan
Exposes the stark reality of family rejection for LGBT youth while sharing the resilience, courage and resolve of a brave young woman to reclaim her life. We at the Family Acceptance Project know how to help families to support their LGBT children; this book will help us do that.
The Bay Area Reporter
Ripped-from-the-headlines books often seemed forced, but not here. Alex’s story is gripping as she comes across as a reliable witness against the cruelties of so-called reparative therapy. Because of her bravery, LGBTQ teenagers in Utah don’t have to undergo what Alex endured.
Carol Lynn Pearson
I have seen far too many cases in which young gay people approach their religious family or church leaders and ask for bread but receive a stone. Saving Alex contributes toward saving the lives and dignity of our LGBTQ children, and saving the souls of our families and religions.
Religion News Service
It may have taken a dramatic case like the abuse that Alex Cooper suffered to bring this issue to the Mormon Church’s attention, but the reality is that it’s not just reparative therapy programs utilizing ‘abusive practices’ that need to go; it’s all of them.
Religion Dispatches
As important as it is to tell the dark truth about conversion therapy, it is just as important that Alex’s story has a happy ending. The message that LGBT kids can survive conservative religious contexts could not be more timely.
The Spectrum
Cooper was subjected to emotional and physical abuse at an unlicensed treatment center. These examples show how dangerous it is, still, to identify as LGBT in the United States, not only because hate crimes and speech are rampant, but because LGBT individuals are often a danger to even themselves.”
Edge Publications
I saw this book’s description and I couldn’t stop myself from signing on. The cruel hypocrisy and her family’s consent to torture is dispiriting, but Alex focuses on freedom, both the physical and spiritual, as hard as she can.
Huffington Post
In her new memoir, author Alex Cooper recounts her grisly experiences with reparative, or ‘gay conversion,’ therapy as a teen. Cooper’s book, Saving Alex, details the ‘exhausting and humiliating’ time she allegedly spent at a home in St. George, Utah.
Booklist (starred review)
The suspenseful, well-written account of Alex’s eight months of ‘reparative’ therapy makes for compelling reading. Alex’s horrifying story is one that needs to be heard, and her book is an eloquent testament to that. It is encouraging proof that, as Alex is told, things do get better.
Seventeen.com
Alex Cooper is gay, and at 15, she was brave enough to come out to her strict Mormon parents. Alex’s parents sent her to a gay conversion house [where she] was harassed and abused, all under the guise of “curing” her. Now, she is fighting to ban gay conversion therapy.
Bookreporter.com
SAVING ALEX raises the issue of what we can do to protect the rights of people who seek only to love whom they will. Cooper emphasizes the hopeful elements in her nightmarish experience: you are never alone; there is always help. May inspire others to try to find that help.
BookReporter.com
Saving Alex is a courageous memoir that tells Alex’s story in the hopes that it will bring awareness and justice to this important issue. A bold, inspiring story of one girl’s fight for freedom, acceptance and truth.
BUST Magazine
Heart-wrenching, suspenseful. Alex’s hopeful story is a testament to the power of solidarity and compassion and a measure of how far our society has come. But it is also a chilling reminder that thousands in the U.S. are still subjected to deplorable conditions inside ‘gay conversion programs’ today
Mother Jones
In this deeply personal book, Alex Cooper recounts her teenage years undergoing conversion therapy after her parents, devout Mormons, discovered she was gay. The story is riveting.
The Toronto Star
Saving Alex is sure to become a clarion call to LGBT teens everywhere.
Saving Alex is a courageous memoir that tells Alex’s story in the hopes that it will bring awareness and justice to this important issue. A bold, inspiring story of one girl’s fight for freedom, acceptance and truth.”
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School Library Journal
07/01/2016
Raised in the Mormon Church, Cooper was always a rebellious teenager. With her Mormon friends, she snuck out of her parents' house, smoked marijuana, and talked back. None of these actions caused much drama in her household, but when the high school sophomore admitted to her parents that the hickey on her neck was from a girl, their family life exploded. Told that she was going to live with her grandparents, Cooper instead was sent to a residential home in St. George, UT, where she was mentally and physically abused in order to "fix" her homosexuality. With the assistance of caring teachers and friends, Cooper legally escaped the respected Mormon family who were trying to "cure" her, and a Salt Lake City pro bono lawyer helped her win the right to live with her parents as an openly gay teenager. Cooper never tried to completely break with her parents; she makes it clear that she wants to be their daughter and to be honest about her identity. This memoir is sure to rile teens to action. Information about Gay-Straight Alliances, PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People), and student rights is integrated effectively into the narrative, and even reluctant readers will enjoy this memoir. VERDICT A moving, timely memoir perfect for teens who love autobiographies or LGBTQ books, or reluctant readers who need a short biography to fulfill a class assignment.—Sarah Hill, Lake Land College, Mattoon, IL
Kirkus Reviews
2015-12-17
A memoir of a lesbian Mormon who stood up for her rights. When 15-year-old Cooper told her parents that she was gay, she had no idea she would cause a tidal wave in her Mormon family and community. "I can see how terrifying it must have been, for my mom especially," she writes, "because our religion told her there was no place for people like me, no place in the faith and the community that held her world together, and no place in God's plan." Unable to deal with the issue, the author's parents sent her to Utah to live with a strict Mormon family who swore they could change and "cure" her of her homosexuality. Their treatment methods were abusive, both physically and verbally, and Cooper struggled to survive each day for the eight months she had to live with this couple and their family. The author's prose is expressive, honest, and moving as she writes about how she battled to balance her own sense of faith and acceptance of her sexual identity with the strong tenets being forced upon her, which excluded gay people completely. Surrounded by Mormons who believed the couple was doing the right thing and ignored Cooper's pleas for help, she had to draw on inner strengths that she didn't know she had. Eventually, she managed to find help from other gay people hidden in the community and outside the state of Utah. Cooper's story demonstrates how a strong belief in any religion can cause people to do great harm to other humans simply because that religion justifies their methods and actions. It also shows how it is still possible to endure and prevail. The traumatic and illuminating events suffered by a teenage girl who dared to say she was gay in a religious community that doesn't readily accept homosexuality.
