My addiction started after reading Cosmopolitan. Their August issue featured a list of ‘Summer’s Must Reads’ and I was dying to find a new book to really lose myself in. They described Clean by Juno Dawson as a cross between Cat Marnell’s How to Murder Your Life and Gossip Girl. Obviously, I was going to buy it. And when I got home to see that glorious Amazon parcel patiently sat at my doorstep I knew there was no going back. I was ready to become addicted.
The story follows Lexi Volkova. A 17-year-old London socialite whose absent father runs a chain of luxurious hotels. She hasn’t had to work for, beg for, or really even ask for anything, which, let’s face it, is the life we all wish to lead. But because of her pampered life, she becomes bored and so immerses herself in a world of drugs, high-profile parties, and a ‘boyfriend’ who uses her for her money. It’s only when she’s forced into rehab after a particularly rough night of overdosing on heroin that she realises all of this and so begins her journey to become clean.
This masterpiece of modern literature is written by Juno Dawson who is the author of a series of young adult fiction and non-fiction books which usually have a focus on the LGBTQ+ community. Born James Dawson in West Yorkshire, Juno is transgender and as such explores sexuality and gender in her books, most notably in her 2017 book The Gender Games. Clean features Kendall, a transgender 19-year-old who suffers from anorexia due to wanting to look like a ‘perfect woman’. But whereas Kendall could be seen as the token trans character representing the LGBTQ+ community, she is so much more than that. She has been written in a way that makes her transition normalised. Her issue isn’t that she is transitioning into being a woman, it’s her anorexia which she has formed due to the pressures she feels from being a woman. This makes her character much more relatable to not just people in the LGBTQ+ community, but also to women and victims of anorexia, amongst other eating disorders, who can empathise with the pressures she feels to be perfect.
Forget the twelve-step programme of rehabilitation past because The Clarity Center, the VIP rehab that Lexi is emitted to, has dropped two steps and devised a 10-step process instead. As Doctor Goldstein, one of the doctors leading the Clarity Centre, tells our protagonist: “we just encourage you to think of the bigger picture… Here we think there’s a lot more to life than your next hit”. The steps begin as standard with admitting you have a problem, something that doesn’t really occur to our spoilt socialite until the very end of the novel, and goes all the way to step 10: “I understand recovery is an ongoing, life-long commitment”. And through each step we witness spoilt and arrogant Lexi bare her soul in therapy, and make friends, and possibly more than friends, with the other addicts, until she turns into a slightly softer, albeit still spoilt and arrogant, version of herself that is clean.
Despite being targeted at readers 14+ Clean has a lot to teach adults about the life of youths growing up in the 21stcentury and how our actions can impact the lives of others. Despite all the attendees at the Clarity Centre being rich or somewhat famous their addictions did not solely come from their lives of luxury. There’s the child star sex addict, the OCD over-achiever, and Sasha who struggles with the patriarchy’s traditional view of beauty and femininity and so acts out to reject the mould society tries to force her into. Each character, none older than 19 years of age, is written as an adult. So, adult in fact that you completely forget their adolescence and instead become fixated on the adults their addictions have made them become. How adult the 21stcentury lives they lead have made them become.
Lexi is the girl I always wanted to be. She has unlimited money, an unlimited list of famous friends, and she lives her life fearlessly. But she is everything I fear I could become. She isn’t the classic likable protagonist featured in so many other books. She is hard, and arrogant, and spoilt, and doesn’t believe she has a drug problem despite seeing herself passed out with blue lips. She completely rejects any help offered to her and would rather stay with her money grabbing junkie ‘boyfriend’ than think about her potential in life. She isn’t easy to like at all. In fact, the majority of the book will be read with you wanting to shake some sense into her. But for some reason, you’ll love her. The more she divulges throughout the book and the more she lets you into her ‘perfect’ life the more you’ll realise how desperate she is for love. Reading the book, I felt strangely like me and Lexi were best friends. Perhaps it’s the way it’s written as if you’re inside her head, but I really felt like I knew this girl and wanted to help her get clean.
With the rights to the book having already been bought by Blueprint Pictures, the company behind Three Billboards, a TV adaptation will hopefully be on its way soon. Until then I highly recommend reading the book. It gives a truly realistic look at young adults in the 21stcentury and how hard it is to admit you have an addiction. Clean is a read you won’t want to put down. It will be an addiction you won’t want to cure.
All The Stuff In-between 