5-STAR REVIEW: THE HOME FOR WAYWARD GIRLS by Marcia Bradley

Publication Date: April 4, 2023

While other adolescent girls are listening to grunge rock or swooning over boy bands and movie stars, Loretta knows little of life beyond the Home for Wayward Girls, the secluded ranch where her parents run a program designed to “correct” teen girls’ “bad behavior.” Some new residents arrive with their moms and dads, while other are accompanied by transporters—people paid to forcibly deliver these “problem” teens—girls caught swearing, smoking, drinking, or kissing. Many are failed runaways desperate to leave their controlling and sometimes brutal homes. Few have any idea of the suffering that lies ahead.

Loretta witnesses firsthand how the adults use abusive discipline to crush these young women’s spirits and break their wills. She understands these girls’ pain and shares it. Since childhood she’s been afraid of her father, and avoids him by spending time with the residents, secretly teaching them the survival skills they’ll need in case they manage to escape. Until the day a horrifying act of violence forces her to make her own terrible choice. Terrified and with no other option, Loretta flees the ranch and hitchhikes across the country, ending up in New York. Eventually finding safety and a sympathetic community, Loretta dedicates herself to working with lost, vulnerable, and defenseless teens, determined to prevent the same thing from happening to other girls like her.

Growing up, Loretta knows very little about life outside the ranch her parents operate as a residential home for immoral young females. Forced to work on the ranch, she must also navigate her father’s brutal rules.

With The Home for Wayward Girls, author Marcia Bradley delivers a story of resilience as Loretta tries to build friendships with the residents. The survival skills she teaches them are designed to help if they are ever to escape the ranch.

The encounters, seemingly cloaked in religious fanaticism, serve as a cover for her father’s abusive tendencies. Whether it’s the clothes the girls wear, the forced labor, the rituals they are expected to perform, or the “special alone time” spent with Loretta’s father, there is nothing positive about the program.

Ultimately, events fall into place that forces Loretta to flee, where she can spread her wings and serve as an advocate. It’s this determination that provides justice for all the girls who suffered at William’s hands.

The Home for Wayward Girls shines a powerful spotlight on residential programs and how easily they can turn into dumping grounds for teens deemed unruly. It’s also a story of empowerment as Loretta not only escapes but thrives.

Marcia Bradley earned her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College after receiving her BA from Antioch LA. Winner of a Bronx Council on the Arts BRIO Award for fiction, she has been published in literary magazines and journals. Marcia is very proud of The Home for Wayward Girls, her debut novel, and hopes readers feel a kinship with the protagonist, Loretta, and her journey. She also hopes this book will help bring light to an important issue in this country.

Marcia grew up in Chicago. As a young adult, she moved to Santa Monica to live near the beach where later her daughters were born. A single mom, they traveled a lot, lived on both coasts and in the Midwest. Marcia teaches fiction and memoir, loves art, tries in her writing to be of service, plays tennis not so well, and lives in the Bronx, New York.