Stolen

Stolen by Lucy Christopher



This is not an action adventure novel.  Christopher has Gemma addressing Ty throughout the novel, so I thought she was talking to him after he was dead.  I was wrong about that.

Gemma and her parents are on their way to Vietnam.  When Gemma visits a coffee shop while waiting for the plan and Ty approaches her, I became paranoid about letting my own daughter go somewhere by herself because of the fear of her being kidnapped.  One of a parents greatest fears!

When Ty kidnapped Gemma, I kept wanting her to escape and rooted for her to escape, but by the last fifty pages, I wanted Gemma and Ty to be together.  I guess I experienced some of the Stockholm syndrome myself  reading this.

This is like the novel Held, but I did feel the connection between Ty and Gemma more than I did with Chloe and her kidnapper.  Even though Gemma is stolen from her family, she and the reader have to decide what was stolen from her.

Because I Am Furniture

Because I am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas

 
I thought this was an unusual title for a novel, but once I read it, it makes perfect sense. Chaltas effectively carries the wood and furniture concept throughout the novel.

This novel is written in verse form like Ellen Hopkins' novels and focuses on a similar topic: child abuse.

The deal is that Anke the youngest of three siblings is the only one who is not abused.  Their father abuses her older sister Yaicha and brother Darren but does nothing physically to her.  He does tell Anke that she should not play volleyball because competition is not good for girls.  I guess that is how he tries to control her.   Anke does not tell us what happens behind her sister and brother's bedroom doors with their father at night, but she does tell us about the bruises she sees the next day and we can only guess what he does.

Anke's mother is like Dave Pelzer's father who sees what is going on but does nothing to stop the abuse.  As a parent, I could not let my children suffer like this.  I would leave as soon as possible. 

If you are a fan of Hopkins or Pelzer, this novel could become one of your favorites too.

Room

Room by Emma Donoghue



I had seen a write up about this novel in one of the magazines I read and had it on my list of books to read.  When I read the review, I thought the mother kept Jack, the five-year-old, locked up in a room against his will but reading the novel, I found out both Jack and his mother are locked in an 11x11 room against their will.  Over Christmas I was reading this at my mother-in-law's and she asked me about it.  When I began telling her about it, my husband made the comment that teenage girls are kidnapped all the time.  He reminded us of Jaycee Lee Dugard, so this story could have actually happened. Just like Dugard and her children, Jack and his mother had no medical check-ups and were kept in a soundproof building in a guy's backyard.  Is life imitating fiction, or is fiction imitating life? 

The novel is told from Jack's point of view but unlike the innocent eye narrator Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, we understand more than Jack does.  Jack has been isolated for five years, and once he and his mother escape the room, Jack has to learn that the outside world is real.

This is not a novel that I would recommend to everyone.  I think well-read and more mature readers will enjoy this more than others.  Because Jack does not comprehend everything around him and cannot express himself in an intelligent way all the time, some readers may be lost. 

This is a believable story, and I wonder if other girls who are kidnapped and survive deal with the same type of trauma after the ordeal is over.