Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland

by Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus,
with Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan
Hennepin County Library audiobook, 10 CDs
read by Jorjeana Marie, Marisol Ramirez and Arthur Morey
genre: non-fiction, memoir

This was horrible. The title first caught my attention. Hope is such a powerful entity.

As I was listening to disc one, I thought about stopping. It's just too horrible and depressing. Then I realized that these women survived a terrible ordeal . . . and I couldn't handle "listening" to their story?! That didn't seem right. They deserve to have their story heard. (This made me think of how awful it was to watch the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. I had to pause the video and think, "My stomach is in knots watching this on a screen while I'm safe in my living room. What on earth was it like for the young men who were actually there, seeing the carnage, on those beaches in the 1940s????")

The Sylvia Brown psychic story when she told Amanda's mom on Montel Williams' show that Amanda was dead . . . that loss of hope was so awful.

It's horrific that Arlene Castro and Gina were best friends. Amanda knew another of his daughters. Michelle was friends with Castro's daughter Emily. Yuk. What a hideous man! And Arlene had "behavioral issues" after Gina went missing? Wow. If she'd only known . . .

Timeline. As I was listening, I tried to think of what I was doing and how old my kids were on the dates of these women's stories.
August 22, 2002 - Michelle Knight taken
April 21, 2003 - Amanda Berry abducted the day before her seventeenth birthday
April 2, 2004 - Gina DeJesus was taken (only 14 years old!!! And he knew her parents!)
March 2, 2006 - Amanda's mother, Luanne Miller, died age 43
December 25, 2006 - Amanda gave birth to Jocelyn Jade
May 6, 2013 - they rescued themselves. Ariel Castro was arrested.
September 3, 2013 - Castro killed himself by hanging. (9:18 pm - less than a half hour after the last check on him . . . I can't believe they tried CPR and called for an ambulance. I suppose they had to. Thirty-three days after he was sentenced.)

There's a more thorough timeline at www.cbsnews.com/news/timeline-of-events-the-cleveland-kidnapping-case/ . . . but it's still all horrific.

The part on April 10, 2013 when Castro was visiting with his daughter Angie . . . chilling. How on earth did his four children from his first marriage reconcile his actions with the dad they knew (once they found out, of course)? Angie's last visit to the house on Seymour Avenue . . . how awful.

When Gina started cutting, it just added to the sadness of what she experienced. How did these women survive?!?! Yes, hope. Hope to see their families again, to be free. I'm so glad their families never gave up on finding them.

I'm sad to not know more of Michelle's story, but I don't think I can handle reading her book. The fact that Castro had beaten her to make her miscarry (multiple times) is just another layer of horror.

"I have no choice." That phrase came up a lot from both Amanda and Gina. Castro was an icky creepy nasty man!

Jocelyn Jade - Amanda Berry's daughter. The key to their escape!

As I'm listening to the part immediately after they're rescued and she is meeting with lawyers at her sister's house, I am in tears hearing the reader say (as Amanda) - "I'm not sure what lawyers can do, but I want a headstone for my mother's grave and I want a birth certificate for Jocelyn."

All the times that Castro insisted that he was a victim, or that the girls had had consensual sex with him, or that his "faith" kept him from being a danger to himself . . . makes me want to puke. What a horrible, twisted human being!

I'm so glad that there was an outpouring of support (and money) for these women once they were free. I cannot begin to imagine how challenging it was for them to rebuild lives after a decade of imprisonment and torture. I remember when they were found - it was all over the news. But to hear their stories and their focus on hope and the future - that's inspiring.

Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva

by Rosemary Sullivan
Hennepin County Library audiobook 16 discs
(print version has photos and 623 pages plus bib, index, notes, etc.)
read by Karen Cass
genre: non-fiction biography

Wow! So glad I listened to this on audiobook. Cass' voice was perfect once I got used to the British accent. Her pronunciation of Russian names leads me to believe she's fluent in the language.

Notes from listening in the car:

• abortion as a form of birth control - how incredibly sad!
• Stalin as dictator / the csars before / Pultin now . . . cult of personality
• people and place names - confusing - what's a dacha(?) / I looked it up - like a summer house
• arrests, torture, imprisonment, death by firing squad, fear, talk, forced confessions, . . . horrible. I can't imagine living in this environment.
• Stalin's death . . . everyone too frightened to call a doctor. Wow.
• Laventiy Beria - never heard of him before. What power over people's lives!
• after Stalin's death, people either worshiped or reviled him (and Svetlana)
• Olgivanna Wright - what a psycho! Taliesin - now I need to read more about Frank Lloyd Wright and this crazy place.
• 20 Letters to a Friend by Svetlana - I am interested in reading this.
• Olga - interesting to look up pictures of Svetlana's daughter! (Stalin's granddaughter is a tattooed biker chick in Seattle!)

Overall, I was fascinated by this history lesson. I believe the author researched extensively. Others in Litwits thought it was too long, too detailed, and had too much of Svetlana being a crazy woman . . . but I think she was in such a unique position in history. Yes, she was an odd duck - part Russian princess, part defiant rebel, part ??? I'm glad I "read" this, and I like that it piqued my curiosity on many levels.

Golden Boy

by Tara Sullivan
Hennepin County Library hardcover 347 pages plus a glossary of Kiswahili terms
genre: YA fiction

Habo is an albino living on a farm outside a small village in Tanzania. When his family can no longer afford to live there, they travel to Mwanza to live with his mother's sister and family. En route, they encounter a handsome "hunter" who illegally kills elephants for their tusks, teeth, and toenails. Alasiri is even more sinister than his poaching, though. Soon Habo is running for his life, since some people in Mwanza believe that the body parts of albinos have powerful properties. I both loved and hated this book. It is wonderfully written! The author includes notes at the end about her research for this story. The characters are very well drawn and I enjoyed "getting to know them" except for Alasiri. This is a wonderful book.

Sharing and Caring Hands: My Mondays with Mary Jo Copeland

Additional subtitle: A Story of Friendship and Conversion
by Nancy Jo Sullivan
Hardcover, 124 pages, Carver County Library

I requested this online via interlibrary loan to show Dan Thompson's students how easy it is to request books, but I'm not sure those sixth graders were ready to do that level of work in finding heroes' biographies. As long as I had this book, I decided to go ahead and read it. I knew a bit about Mary Jo Copeland, but not a lot.

Wow. What an incredible woman! This particular book is much more about the author's life, but I'm also reading another biography of Copeland, so I'm getting a double dose. This book shows clearly her intense love for all God's people. The author herself is moved and affected by her time with Mary Jo, and sees how poor people's lives are transformed as well.

The only thing that bothered me about this book was the continual focus the author placed on her one daughter with Downs syndrome. What about her other two girls? Finally, in a later chapter, she draws one of her other girls into the storytelling. But even her author picture is just her and her daughter Sarah. I wonder - is it because the other two didn't want to be included? It just seemed weird to me - as though she favored Sarah over the other two.