Wow! Powerful, gutrenching, honest, gritty, realistic, truthful, heartbreaking, redemptive..are all words that you could use to describe this memoir by Jaycee Dugard who was abducted at 11, gave birth to her 1st child at 14 and was captive for 18 years and yet none of these words do the book justice. It is the most amazing testimony to the human spirit I have ever read and even with all the truly horrendous descriptions of what her Captor did to her you are left glad that you read it.
A more honest and brave young woman would be hard to find, concerned that others who had suffered similar fates had sugarcoated the experience and its consequences to a certain degree, Jaycee decided that to do the same would re victimize her and all who have gone before her or who sadly will come after her, so she would tell the truth and nothing less from the start of her ordeal until today and if anyone had a problem with that, it was theirs not hers.
Remarkably free of hate and bitterness but angry at the loss of such a huge portion of her life, and the monstrous toll it took on her family she has set about to rebuild her life and to make a difference in the lives of her two daughters who are protected and shielded from the media but otherwise normality reigns in her household.
We may imagine that once reunited with your loved ones you go of on a Fairytale existence but this is not so and what really more than anything else really, deeply touched me was her description of the reunification process, the toughness but lovingness of this and how difficult it really is.
Jaycee Dugard is nothing short of a Hero. If you didn't see her on 60 minutes last night please watch it on demand. Her book in a lovely soft cover edition is available from Paper Plus and it is just so worth reading. Jaycee has given me a new understanding of certain processes and that is her gift to all who read her book although what you learn maybe totally different from what I learnt.
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