Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a beautiful book. What I have come to understand is that this is not a book about a kidnapping. This is a book about a spiritually gifted woman navigating her way through a life marked by deeply moving events. I am humbled by what I have read. Ms Dugard is able to continue down a path of personal growth under the most constrained circumstances. The journal entries from her captivity, both as a child and later as an adult, reveal the amazingly positive energy she carries within her. She has the capacity for self-reflection at a young age, even though she is denied any personal autonomy. Later, she is able to build a semblance of a normal life for her children, home schooling them with her own curriculum despite only having a 5th grade education. She plants a garden, cares for her animals, even manages a business. All of this while enduring the constant abuse of a hyper-controlling, drug-addicted psychopath. I am deeply inspired by her ability to keep pouring love out into the world despite being treated so horridly. Rather than turn away to some dark place, Ms Dugard performs a kind of spiritual judo, reflecting back love and compassion on the animals in her care, the children she's struggling to raise and the distant memory of her mother. She is able to resist the temptation to spew forth hatred upon the perpetrators of her abuse. Instead, she lets it go and moves on to a better place. Frankly, I'm a bit ashamed that my initial interest in this book was based on sensationalist media coverage of the events surrounding her rescue. I was expecting to learn more about her captors and what kind of person would commit such a horrendous crime. After finishing the book, I've realized that don't care about them. Instead, I've learned something about myself: that I never need give up hope. No situation requires that I compromise myself or my beliefs. I can see now experiences in my own life where I was sucked in by the spiritual traps that Ms Dugard successfully navigated around for 18 years. I have a new role model to look up to. Ms Dugard is living proof that "life can start over." I am indebted to her for a new understanding of those words. Thank you.