They Called Me Hills Paperback – March 28, 2026

Everyone has a theory about what kind of kid ends up in handcuffs. They're always wrong.Connor Ellison was sixteen and absolutely certain that consequences were something that happened to other people. Confident. Connected. Hundreds of thousands of followers who thought they knew him. He didn't even know himself. Then one night in Beverly Hills, a kid he had never met was shoved into a mirror. And somehow, Connor was the one paying for it.Seven nights. That's all it took to destroy one life and quietly begin another.Inside juvenile detention, Connor met kids who understood survival in ways no comfortable life ever teaches. Barbosa, who chose a jail cell over a gang that would have killed him. Cody, tattooed with dragons, dreaming of becoming an electrician while his mother never came to visit. Baby, fourteen years old, locked up for protecting his mother from the man who was supposed to protect them both. These were not cautionary tales. These were teachers.They Called Me Hills is a raw, unflinching memoir about what happens when the American justice system swallows you whole and what it takes to claw your way back out. It is about transformation, the grace found in dark places, and the people who believed in Connor's future when he couldn't see one.He made it out. Marked, awake, and more himself than he had ever been before.But this book is not really about Connor. It is about every kid the system was never designed to protect. And after seven nights that should never have happened, Connor made it his life's mission to make sure you finally see them too. Read more