Was wandering around the Goodwill bookshelves yesterday, spending my "November allowance", and couldn't pass this up. It's in decent shape, and I've heard a lot about it. Oh yes, and it was cheap :) What more could a bookcrosser ask?

WOW. This is not what I had expected. I think I had been told (or maybe assumed) that this was another novel, more heavy and more autobiographical than The Lovely Bones, but I didn't know it was a full-on straight-talk version of her actual story.

My thoughts? They are many and random:

• It's heavy. Really heavy. And because this forum thread was active the week before I read this book, I'd say, strongly, don't let an 11 year old read this book!
  
• This book reminded me a LOT of Fran Drescher's Cancer Schmancer. I hope that's not insulting or inappropriate to either author, but it seemed as if both stories needed to be told, and told well, as an empowering story for other women (and men) to read. Yes, they are totally different. And they are totally the same.
  
• I'm interested by the comments that describe this in "uplifting" words. I agree it's "exhilarating" (Elle), "strangely enchanting" (Newsday), and "funnier than you'd think was possible" (Vogue), but it wasn't totally positive. It's definitely one woman's story of survival. How she was incredibly destructive and came out on the other side, how she discovered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, etc. But I still found it to be sort of a downer. Not because of the subject matter. The rape was overcome! That's an upper! But because she spent so long on the first three-quarters of the book and then after the 2nd rape (not a spoiler, per se) where her life went was sooooo depressing. In the end, her "healing" was only granted a handful of pages. And that's the best part! Why wouldn't she have dwelt more on that? That's what I found depressing.
  
• It is amazingly well written. And now that I know Lovely Bones was her first book, I can forgive her the dumb "quasi-Ghost" scene.
  
• Having only read these two books, I can't help but wonder if this is the only topic she writes on.
  
• As you read this book, you wonder how her family feels about it. At least, I did.

I'll end with this Newsday quote from the cover. I think it's spot-on: The quiet achievement of Sebold's memoir of her rape as a college freshman is that she handles her subject with the integrity of a journalist and the care of a survivor.

This is on its way to fulfill a wish on a sweetheart's wishlist. I'm glad I saw it there, or this might STILL be on the TBR pile :)

(one last note -- you know that if I were sending this envelope to anyone else, I would have fully blocked your return address, right?) :)

Antof9...you little scoundrel. Ah, I am grinning ear to ear, but you shouldn't have done that!!! I just need to register those bad boys (Belize Bound Books) and something else always seems to come up. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE GREAT RABCK!!!!! Can't wait to enjoy this one!

RELEASE NOTES:

I am taking this to our renegade meet-up tonight to see if anyone wants to read this before I get to it so it doesn't languish on my shelves! Then back to me (YEAH). It looks fabulous...and from one of the nicest bookcrossers I know!

PS: Antof9, thanks for the address disclaimer. No worries, I have no problem with my return address being on anything...It got me a fabulous RABCK :) today!