My Story by Elizabeth Smart 🔖🔖🔖

I find it difficult to critique someone's personal experience of a very traumatic event and even hesitated to give this only 3 stars because of the sheer difficulty this must have been in writing. But the writing, and I assume most of it was Chris Stewart, not Elizabeth herself, was sub par. In fact, it is obvious in the last few chapters that the writing switched from him to her. If the whole book had been like the last few chapters, this would have been an amazing read. Granted, Chris had only her words to work with, yet it seems there were so many parts that were "garbled", for lack of a better word, that could have been worked on a bit better.

Regardless, the story was interesting regarding her experiences. It wasn't so badly done that I had to put it down, though if I didn't have a deep interest in the situation, I may have had to put it aside. The last few chapters really did save the book for me. Well done, deeply thought out, meaningful and clear. That's the Elizabeth I keep hearing about.

This is not a book I'd recommend in conversation as "you may like this", but it is something I'd recommend if someone wanted to know what Elizabeth went through. It isn't detailed in a way that people may find offensive or titillating. I have heard complaints about that aspect of her story, but I don't mind it at all. A lot was left to the imagination and that was just fine with me. I imagine some details were left out entirely, but that's her prerogative.