A fifteen-year-old boy named Garrett is picked up by a pair of bounty hunters and sent to a boot camp in upstate New York called Lake Harmony.

Upon his arrival, he learns that his parents have sent him to the facility because he refused to stop having intimate relationships with his former math teacher that was eight years older than him, Sabrina, along with other things including staying out too late, not being athletic enough, and occasionally smoking weed.

He lets his friends out on the other side of the border, and then rescues his pursuers, who bring him back to Lake Harmony, where he is beaten senseless repeatedly.

Kirkus Reviews wrote "Strasser explores the intriguing topic of militaristic boot camps, described as a secret prison system with 4,000 to 10,000 teens, but he undermines his effort with implausible characters and tedious violence.

"[1] where as Publishers Weekly found "Strasser paints his protagonist as heroic, sympathetic and rational (“The product Lake Harmony delivers is the child you always knew you had... not the one you got stuck with”), and when he is ultimately broken—bodily and spiritually—the tragedy is all the more profound.