My Story
I picked this book up for two reasons, first: Elizabeth Smart and I are about the same age, I remember being 13 when she went missing and thinking how weird it was and seeing it on the news a lot. Second I'm trying to finished up the 2015 popsugar reading challenge and one of the challenges I was having an issue with was to read a book by an author under 30.
I listened to this book on audio at work and it was, okay. Religion is brought up in this book and often mentioned in reviews as a negative. Personally it didn't bother me, I think it gave accurate insight into how she got through her captivity and life after returning home. What I have a problem with is how in her narration she uses a sarcastic tone a lot and while it is probably accurate to what she was thinking at the time it didn't translate well into the audio. Another issue that I had is that she doesn't really go into any details about things that happened to her. I'm not expecting her to give in depth descriptions but she says things like "treated me like a slave", "shown disgusting acts", and chastised so severely after trying to escape that she didn't dare try again. These things weren't explained in any depth which just left me wondering what she meant. Which I think it's fine if she doesn't want to go into depth but I feel like the parts of the book where these things where said could have been phrased differently and then wouldn't have left me feeling like there was no context for these comments. Also while I wanted to know Elizabeth's story in her words I also would have liked a slightly broader, investigative journalism style story, but that is mostly because that is a genre I grew up with an satisfies my urge to know the larger scope and context of things (that being said I don't think I want to know enough to read In Plain Sight, which her uncle co-authored).
Truly though, I am impressed that Smart could think of the things she was thankful for on Thanksgiving, and has done so well turning her experience into activism.
