- Joe's anonymity and willingness to tell his story in Roman à Clef style. As he discovered during and after his Elan stay, there were several inmates who became devout Elan acolytes, plus tons of former staff still out there who likely don't want their atrocities known by the wider public. It's horrifying to think that his life could be in danger from any of these people, especially any morally bankrupt individuals who are potentially well-connected, given how easily Elan was able to find Joe in the middle of New York City in less than three days after his escape, or how easily Peter and Gino were able to find Joe — in the pre-social media days, no less — after he left Elan.
- Elan's Worst Aid is also horrifying. After what happens with Julian's suicide attempt, or Joe's staph infection, then you're left wondering how just many more cases of poor medical care happened on the school's watch and went unreported.note
- Joe's parents' behavior.
- At a neighborhood get-together, Joe notices several of the neighborhood fathers giving him disgusted looks, and figures that the stigma of being sent to Elan has followed him home. After later chapters reveal what Joe's parents really think of him, one wonders what kinds of things Mr. and Mrs. Nobody told their neighbors about their son to elicit such a reaction.
- After they scream at him about his stay in a hospital in Denver, Joe points out that they flake out on cutting off his tuition, and let him continue in college. If their initial impulse after seeing a hospital bill is to blindside Joe with the nuclear option, only to backtrack after things had calmed down, then imagine how Joe's Elan experience could have been prevented if his parents had calmed down, talked things through with him, and helped Joe with a real therapist rather than having him kidnapped from his bed and carted off to Maine.
- Further, it's horrifying to think that this may have been the norm for them throughout Joe's life leading up to the charge. Doubly so when he says that he didn't realize how cool parents could be until he saw how P's and B's parents reacted to the charge, which he compares with his own parents losing their minds over what the neighbors would think. Joe doesn't go into very many details about his home life prior to the charge, but his parents' actions after the drug charge don't necessarily appear to have sprung from nowhere.
- Further than that, given how she's sympathetic to Joe and appears to be rebellious herself, one is left wondering whether Joe's parents would have done the same thing to his older sister, or if they overlooked it because she was the favorite. Either way, Joe notes that she moves to another state and begins a new life, which itself indirectly raises more questions about her own relationship with their parents.
- With how dead-set Christy was about keeping Joe at Elan, given how well he had gotten at running the house and how far gone Joe's mental faculties were at this point, it's conceivable that if Ron hadn't shown up demanding Joe's release, Joe could've ended up gaslit into staying on as a staff member and taking Ron's place.
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