ŷ������

It's amazing how one person can be kept captive for 18 years and not a single soul even suspects anything amiss. This book is Jaycee Dugard's story of her life in captivity. The story telling is simplistic in keeping with the fact that she never got a chance to complete her school education. The book could have done with some editing if only to make the sentence structure better and more readable. The middle of the book is full of journal entries written by Jaycee during her captivity and some of the passages are quite poignant.

I would not really recommend this book because there are just too many stories about cats and dogs and not enough analysis of her own life or that of her captors. For instance, while I found her positive affirmations really impressive, how and why did she get the inspiration to be so positive in a negative environment? I also am a little hazy about why Phillip turned himself in and I find Nancy's role in the entire saga rather unfathomable. She obviously did not want Jaycee around, so why didn't she release her? These, and many more questions are left unanswered by the author.

I really feel for Jaycee's stolen life and hope she manages to get the help she needs and have a bright future, but I really did not need to read about her cats and dogs, page after page after page. As she herself says in the preface, come back to me in ten years time when I've figured things out better. Maybe that's a good idea.