A nuanced testament to the complexity of the human spirit.
On May 6, 2013, electrifying headlines revealed news of the escape of three young women who had been missing for more than 10 years and presumed dead but were in fact held captive by Ariel Castro, a depraved Cleveland school bus driver.
Jordan and Sullivan, Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post journalists (The Prison Angel: Mother Antonia’s Journey from Beverly Hills to a Life of Service in a Mexican Jail, 2005) weave together a compelling chronicle of Berry and DeJesus' harrowing experiences in captivity, told in their own words and in a journal that Berry kept on scraps of paper. Berry tells how she was walking home after completing work when she made the tragic blunder of accepting a ride from Castro. Because he was the father of a former co-worker, she agreed to his making a brief stop at his house along the way. Once in the house, he overpowered and raped her and chained her to a bed in a room without windows. The date was April 21, 2003, the day before her 17th birthday. Only gradually did she realize that another victim (Michelle Knight) was also being held captive. In April 2004, 14-year-old DeJesus suffered the same fate. Jordan and Sullivan give an account of the continuing efforts of the police—prodded by their families—to discover their whereabouts. Berry relates how her relationship with Castro was transformed by the birth of their daughter, Jocelyn, in 2006. He doted on Jocelyn and over time became less vigilant, allowing Berry to escape. She also explores her own mixed feelings on hearing of his suicide in prison: “He kidnapped me, chained me like a dog in his house, and raped me over and over but he was Jocelyn's father. She loves him and he loved her.”
A nuanced testament to the complexity of the human spirit.Pub Date: April 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-42765-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2015
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
