Monday 22 August 2011

Book Review: A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard

A Stolen Life: A MemoirTitle:  A Stolen Life: A Memoir
Series: N/A
Author: Jaycee Dugard
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Publication Date: July 2011
Pages: 286
Goodreads Average Rating: 4.00
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.
Hardest review I have ever written.
A Stolen Life: The true story of Jaycee Dugard, a girl kidnapped in 1991 age 11, found 18 years later.

The book written by herself, tells her story full of manipulation, emotional abuse, rape, loneliness and hope.
A girl who had been through people's worst nightmare's and came out stronger than ever, with two young girl's (her daughter's) by her side.


It is hard to believe that this story is about a girl kidnapped 4years before I was born, and found when I was thirteen.
Since her rescue I have followed her story via, online articles and TV shows and I knew I just had to read her book, her story.


It is a book, which tells of the events which happened, from being taken on that early morning in 1991, to the moment to she was rescued and even beyond. It tells what happened, and the emotions she felt, with even a Reflection piece every so often, as she reflects on what she has written. It's amazing how much she has remembered and horrible to think that this really happened, to such a young and happy girl.
I will admit the book is not amazingly written, like other best seller's, but for someone who was basically taken from the world she once knew, and couldn't even go to school, it was spectacular.

It is a must read for anyone who is interested in the Jaycee story or many other genre's, it really gives a first perspective view of this horrible event which happened in her life. The book has given her a chance to tell her story the way she wanted to tell it. This book is one, which will forever linger my mind and I hope I, nor no one else forgets this story of hope and survival.

Jaycee Dugard, herself is someone who I officially look up to. Not many people who have been through even a percentage of what she did, come out stable and ok in the end. She may never of put up a fight against even Nancy or Phillip, but she did what she had to do to survive and stay safe.
I love how in the book she says she one day dreams to be a bestseller, and now her dream has came true and I only wish more happiness on such a wonderful and amazing person.

Warning: This book is not for the faint-hearted. It is upsetting, and I had to put it down numerous amount of times, so I was able to calm down.

I would feel horrible if I didn't give this book a 5star rating, but it does deserve it aswell...

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