My Story
By Elizabeth Smart and Chris Stewart
Genre: Memoir
Personal Rating: 10/10

Ten years after she was kidnapped from her Salt Late City bedroom, Elizabeth tells her story of brutal cruelty, and recovery. On June 5, 2002 a fourteen-year-old Elizabeth was stolen from her own bedroom by a heavily bearded man and help captive by him and his wife for nine months. During her captivity she was mentally tortured, starved, and raped daily. In this memoir she tells how she survived her nine month of hell and discovered happiness after her rescue.

This was an amazing and inspirational book. I had been putting off reading it for several years, because I was nervous that the content would be too graphic, but after hearing so many good things about it, I finally picked it up. While Elizabeth's story is heart-wrenching and terrible, Elizabeth tells it in a way that isn't graphic or disturbing. She doesn't spare the details about what happened to her, but she doesn't go into so much detail that it was hard to read.

Elizabeth's story is very dear to me, since she was kidnapped so close to were my hometown is. I remember when the news first came that she was missing, and I remember when she was found. I remember being so shocked and sick that she was being kept so close to her home, and was often brought into the city, and still no one found her for so long.

My favorite part about this book was Elizabeth talking about how she recovered after she was rescued. She has such a positive attitude about what had happened to her, counting her blessings instead of turning bitter and depressed. She gives such strong and important advise for all of those affected by abuse. I am also amazed and impressed at how she was able to hold onto her faith throughout the whole ordeal.