AWRW Way Back Wednesday Book Meme: Lucky, a Memoir by Alice Sebold

Way Back Wednesday is a Book Meme created by A Well Read Woman with the aim to write mini book reviews on books read in the past, that left a lasting impression.

You know what kind of books I am talking about… The ones that you have read multiple times, and they still bring you nostalgia. Books like these are the reason you enjoy reading.

If you are interested in participating in this meme, (and I hope you will), you can find full instructions, here!

Today’s Way Back Wednesday post is dedicated to the memoir Lucky, by Alice Sebold.

In a memoir hailed for its searing candor and wit, Alice Sebold reveals how her life was utterly transformed when, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus.

What propels this chronicle of her recovery is Sebold’s indomitable spirit-as she struggles for understanding (“After telling the hard facts to anyone, from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes”); as her dazed family and friends sometimes bungle their efforts to provide comfort and support; and as, ultimately, she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker’s arrest and conviction.

In a narrative by turns disturbing, thrilling, and inspiring, Alice Sebold illuminates the experience of trauma victims even as she imparts wisdom profoundly hard-won: “You save yourself or you remain unsaved.”

Paperback, 246 pages

Published September 16th 2002 by Back Bay Books (first published 1999)

Genre: Memoir, Autobiography, True Crime, Drama, Non-Fiction

This book gave me chills, from beginning to end. The title is from what a moronic police officer said to Alice Sebold; that she was “lucky” she hadn’t been murdered.

Lucky? This was after she had been dragged under a tunnel, raped and beaten. “Lucky!??”

(Somebody needed some serious sensitivity training, but I digress…)

I enjoyed this candid true story because the Author is extremely witty, and it’s so well written. Alice Sebold doesn’t waste time sugar-coating her rape, or the subsequent trial. Lucky is brutally honest, and downright breathtaking.

I only wish I still owned my copy, but a co-worker took it to borrow, and I never saw it again. 😦

Perhaps the name Alice Sebold rings a bell? That is because she also wrote The Lovely Bones, which was turned into a major motion picture.

I would recommend this novel to crime survivors, fans of memoirs and true crime, and anyone who has read The Lovely Bones and enjoyed it.

Purchase, here!

AliceSebold is the bestselling author of “The Lovely Bones,” a novel, and “Lucky,” a memoir. Both are #1 New York Times bestsellers. Born in Madison, Wisconsin,Sebold grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and attended Syracuse University, as well as the University of Houston and the University of California, Irvine. She now lives in California with her husband, the novelist Glen David Gold.

 

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