Book-It 'o11! Book #29
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one and two, just in case you're curious.) This was a library request.
Title: A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard
Details: Copyright 2011, Simon & Schuster
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.
For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.
On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim. I survived.
A Stolen Life is my story- in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it."
Why I Wanted to Read It: The story of Jaycee Dugard fascinated and haunted me as soon as it broke in 2009. I followed the story and was excited to hear that she was writing a memoir and eagerly waited for it (and even read the "true crime lite" version here.)
How I Liked It: People are expecting a great deal of different things from this book and most of them will go wanting. It isn't a lurid tell-all nor does it go deeply into the case itself, the (scholarly) psychological study of the perpetrators, the California parole system, nor the study of sex offenders as a whole.
The story is as the front flap purports. And chillingly so. While it's clear that Dugard didn't use a ghost-writer (and probably not an editor), the story doesn't suffer. Somehow, she manages to keep an even thread throughout the book despite wide time differences, then-and-now comparisons and reflections, and plenty of tense switching. Perhaps this is because this book reads a lot like a therapy journal (and that excludes the pages that are taken from her actual journals) rather than a memoir. Dugard's recollections are staggeringly vivid and vividly horrifying. It's not the ravages of repeated sexual abuse that Dugard finds herself forced to separate from, it's the poison her abductor planted in her mind that lasts, and in telling her story Dugard offers a disturbingly tangible window into psychological abuse. The author does not offer a happy ending as she may be expected; instead, she offers a meaningful one, discussing the joys of being reunited with her loved ones as well as the hard work of reunification. Her final note is undeniably positive as she describes her foundation (J A Y C: "Just Ask Yourself to... Care!") which is built around the goal of helping not only victims of trauma, but their loved ones who suffer as well, recalling her gratitude for those that came forward to help her mother and baby sister.
Like another (much less publicized) book that could be conceived as a "shock read", Girls Like Us, I hope that those eager to read this book with the beliefs that it's a book-length tabloid get the bait-and-switch and walk away with a different outlook on the way "the system" handles sex offenders and is motivated to make positive change.
Notable: Attempting to keep a strict timeline is best avoided, particularly when it comes to recounting her journal entries. Dugard can use phrases like "several years ago" and have it mean two. More than understandable given the medium, but you're bound to find yourself at least once going "Wait a minute---" and trying to recalculate. Try to ignore the urge and you'll appreciate the book more.
Title: A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard
Details: Copyright 2011, Simon & Schuster
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.
For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.
On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim. I survived.
A Stolen Life is my story- in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it."
Why I Wanted to Read It: The story of Jaycee Dugard fascinated and haunted me as soon as it broke in 2009. I followed the story and was excited to hear that she was writing a memoir and eagerly waited for it (and even read the "true crime lite" version here.)
How I Liked It: People are expecting a great deal of different things from this book and most of them will go wanting. It isn't a lurid tell-all nor does it go deeply into the case itself, the (scholarly) psychological study of the perpetrators, the California parole system, nor the study of sex offenders as a whole.
The story is as the front flap purports. And chillingly so. While it's clear that Dugard didn't use a ghost-writer (and probably not an editor), the story doesn't suffer. Somehow, she manages to keep an even thread throughout the book despite wide time differences, then-and-now comparisons and reflections, and plenty of tense switching. Perhaps this is because this book reads a lot like a therapy journal (and that excludes the pages that are taken from her actual journals) rather than a memoir. Dugard's recollections are staggeringly vivid and vividly horrifying. It's not the ravages of repeated sexual abuse that Dugard finds herself forced to separate from, it's the poison her abductor planted in her mind that lasts, and in telling her story Dugard offers a disturbingly tangible window into psychological abuse. The author does not offer a happy ending as she may be expected; instead, she offers a meaningful one, discussing the joys of being reunited with her loved ones as well as the hard work of reunification. Her final note is undeniably positive as she describes her foundation (J A Y C: "Just Ask Yourself to... Care!") which is built around the goal of helping not only victims of trauma, but their loved ones who suffer as well, recalling her gratitude for those that came forward to help her mother and baby sister.
Like another (much less publicized) book that could be conceived as a "shock read", Girls Like Us, I hope that those eager to read this book with the beliefs that it's a book-length tabloid get the bait-and-switch and walk away with a different outlook on the way "the system" handles sex offenders and is motivated to make positive change.
Notable: Attempting to keep a strict timeline is best avoided, particularly when it comes to recounting her journal entries. Dugard can use phrases like "several years ago" and have it mean two. More than understandable given the medium, but you're bound to find yourself at least once going "Wait a minute---" and trying to recalculate. Try to ignore the urge and you'll appreciate the book more.