Author: Michelle Knight with Michelle Burford
Where I Got It: I was contacted to read and review it.
Why I Read It: Because I wanted to know the honest story that Michelle and the other two girls went through with the kidnappings.
Rating: 5 book marks
Michelle Knight was kidnapped in 2002 by a Cleveland school bus driver named Ariel Castro. For more than a decade afterward she endured unimaginable torture at the hand of her abductor. In 2003 Amanda Berry joined her in captivity, followed by Gina DeJesus in 2004. Their escape on May 6, 2013, made headlines around the world. Millions of well-wishers now wonder: What really happened in that house, and how did Michelle find the strength to go on?
Barely out of her own tumultuous childhood, Michelle was estranged from her family and fighting for custody of her young son when she disappeared. Local police believed she had run away, so they removed her from the missing persons lists fifteen months after she vanished. Castro tormented her with these facts, reminding her that no one was looking for her, that the outside world had forgotten her. But Michelle would be be broken.
Heartbreaking, shocking, and ultimately triumphant, Finding Me reveals the details of Michelle's story, including the thoughts and prayers that helped her find her courage to endure her unimaginable circumstances and now build a life worth living. In sharing both her past and her efforts to create a future, Michelle becomes a voice for the voiceless and powerful symbol of hope for the thousands of children and young adults who go missing every year. [[ Blurb from the inside flap of the book. ]]
WOW! Where do I even begin with this book!? It is the most heart breaking, heart wrenching, saddest, shocking, powerful book I have ever read. 100 percent hands down. I kept going back and forth with thinking about just how good this book was, because it is a true story. All of these terrible, awful things happened to this person, to Michelle, and here I am, reading her story and thinking, "This book is amazing". I sort of felt like a bad person for thinking that. This book is a page turner that you will not be able to put down. And again, being a true story, I feel/felt bad for saying that. This poor girl, who turned into a woman and missed out on SO MUCH of her life, was tortured, raped, beat, and here I am, thinking it's a good story.
However, I also decided that it is very well written. The book isn't just about when she was kidnapped. It is written from the beginning of her life. From when she was young, and with her family, with events leading up to when she was kidnapped. It was so well written, that I FORGOT sometimes, that is WAS a true story. Does that make any sense?
The way she wrote her story, made me feel like I knew her. Like I was living it with her, just not getting the physical, emotional and sexual abuse. When she was crying and heartbroken, I could feel it in my heart. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to jump into the pages of that book and hold her. Hug her. Take her out of that prison she knew for 11 years.
I have always felt weird, or indifferent about reading a Memoir. I feel like all of the ones I've written (besides this one, of course) isn't written well. But this one... Wow. Just, wow.
I encourage you to go out in buy this book. Put your entire self inside of it. Read it. Cry. Read it again. In fact, I would be willing to BUY this book FOR some of you, it is just that good.
Michelle, if you ever read this review, please know you are my hero. You are by far the strongest, most courageous woman I have ever known. I hope one day to meet you, to give you a hug and tell you how amazing you are. Keep going strong, girl. Keep making that new life for yourself!!!
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