NEW YORK TIMES ‚ BESTSELLER - ‚ If you think you know the truth behind Eleven's mother, prepare to have your mind turned Upside Down in the first official ‚ Stranger Things ‚ novel--"the prequel story that fans have been waiting for" (Kirkus Reviews).It's the summer of 1969, and the shock of conflict reverberates through the youth of America. As a student at a quiet college campus in the heartland of Indiana, Terry Ives couldn't be farther from the front lines of Vietnam or the protests in Washington. ‚ But the world is changing, and Terry isn't content to watch. When word gets around about an important government experiment in the small town of Hawkins, she signs on as a test subject for the project, code-named MKULTRA. The remote lab, deep in the woods, contains a mystery Terry is determined to uncover. ‚ Behind the walls of Hawkins National Laboratory--and the piercing gaze of its director, Dr. Martin Brenner--lurks a conspiracy greater than Terry could have ever imagined. To face it, she'll need the help of her fellow test subjects, including a young girl with unexplainable superhuman powers and a number instead of a name: 008. ‚ Amid the rising tensions of the new decade, Terry Ives and Martin Brenner have begun a different kind of war--one where the human mind is the battlefield.