A Stolen Life: A Memoir
by Jaycee Dugard

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.

Genre: Nonfiction
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (July 12, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1451629184
ISBN-13: 978-1451629187

I love reading true crimes as much as I love reading psych books. Call it fetish but I find true-to-life books more fascinating since it explains basic human nature. Perhaps it is my thirst for understanding human behavior, or some other things but that’s just the way it is. lol

The first time this book ever came out of Amazon’s bestsellers list, I instantly marked it as my “to-read” and by God, I will! Maybe by skipping the next 5 ones on my list, I’ll be able to make it by the end of the month. teehee. Will update you guys!

UPDATE 08.13.2011

Finally I was able to get around to reading and reviewing this book! Just for the record, it took me two days so that’s, in my vocabulary, a page-turner.

I believe that if there was an editor or someone to prettify the texts, they didn’t do much on this book but spellcheck. While reading it, I felt that it was really Jaycee telling me her story. The book was really her words. No fancy lines, no pretensions.

However, having read the book Room by Emma Donoghue, i find the story eerily similar to it’s look and feel. Even some parts of the story went the same as the other. If it were just another fiction story, I would have accused it of copying Miss Donoghue’s story but we all know Miss Dugard’s book really happened – unfortunately.

One word of caution though, if you’re looking for a literary piece, look someplace else. This book is for those who simply would like to know what happened to Miss Dugard while in captivity and how she was able to cope all those years. She told her story the way she felt them writing. There’s even a “reflection” at the end of every chapter. The book has the look and feel of a reflection book or for some, a journal.

The book is mainly her feelings during and after captivity so if you are expecting a Gregg Olsen or an Ann Rule type of writing, might as well wait for them to actually write Jaycee’s book. There will be no explanation how Nancy or Phillip Garrido ended up like that, no discussions of their childhood either. This book is solely Jaycee. This is part of her road to healing.

Overall, I’m going to give it a 3 out of 5. While I commend Miss Dugard of her bravery to write a book, there were some parts of the book I didn’t really enjoy. Some were discussed over and over, like Phillip’s obsession with angels, etc. These are the things that I would like to know once and move on to more important details like how they were rescued or how the kids reacted when they were told that she is their mom, not Nancy. I feel that the book would have improved tremendously if it was co-written by someone professional.

But hey, writing a book about a traumatic experience takes a lot of courage so I’m giving two thumbs up to Miss Dugard’s bravery

Related posts:

1. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children