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Monday, March 16, 2020

REVIEW⇢ RUST & STARDUST

BY T. GREENWOOD




    SYNOPSIS FROM AUTHORS WEBSITE⇣
    The gripping, heart-wrenching novel of Sally Horner, the 11-year-old kidnapping victim whose abduction in 1948 inspired Nabokov's Lolita.
    Camden, NJ, 1948. When 11-year-old Sally Horner steals a notebook from the local Woolworth's, she has no way of knowing that 52-year-old Frank La Salle, fresh out of prison, is watching her, preparing to make his move. Accosting her outside the store, Frank convinces Sally that he’s an FBI agent who can have her arrested in a minute―unless she does as he says.
    This chilling novel traces the next two harrowing years as Frank mentally and physically assaults Sally while the two of them travel westward from Camden to San Jose, forever altering not only her life, but the lives of her family, friends, and those she meets along the way.
    Based on the experiences of real-life kidnapping victim Sally Horner and her captor, whose story shocked the nation and inspired Vladimir Nabokov to write his controversial and iconic Lolita, this heart-pounding story by award-winning author T. Greenwood, at last, gives a voice to Sally herself.


    BOOK TAGS


     FICTION BASED IN TRUTH
     WITH NAMES AND FACTS KEPT 
     SALLY HORNER KIDNAPPING
     1948
     PEDOPHILIA (IT'S DIFFICULT TO READ/LISTEN TO AT TIMES) 

      BOOK DETAILS⇣


      AUDIO PERFORMED BY THERESE PLUMMER
      NARRATION RATING  4.5/5
      BOOK COVER IT'S STRIKING
      SETTING CAMDEN & ATLANTIC CITY NJ, BALTIMORE, MD, DALLAS, TX, & SAN JOSE, CA
      SOURCE LIBBY AUDIOBOOK (LIBRARY)
      AUDIOBOOK LENGTH 10 HOURS, 34 MINUTES


      MY THOUGHTS⇣


      I've never read Lolita, and after listening to this...I'm pretty sure I don't want to.  I'm not sure who's pov it's told from, but if it's told from the pedophiles pov, I won't be able to get through it.  For me, it wasn't just the forced intercourse (which is not overly explicit, thank goodness), it's the lies he fed her...the terrible lies, I just wanted this girl to know more, to know better than this.  It was gut-wrenchingly sad at times.

      This is really well-written and the story is poignantly told, and still, it didn't wrench me out of this slump.  I haven't rated anything 5 stars in quite some time...pretty much the whole year, actually.  I thought for sure this one would do it too.  I did love the way the title of the book and the cover are woven into the story.

      Therese Plummer's narration doesn't always work for me...but in this story she did.  Her voice was a little whispery, but she did a little girl's voice perfectly...endearingly so.


      MY RATING ✰STARS✰


      BREAKDOWN⇣

      Plot 4/5
      Characters 4/5
      The Feels 4.5/5
      Pacing 3.8/5
      Addictiveness 4/5
      Theme or Tone 4/5
      Flow (Writing Style) 4/5
      World-Building 5/5
      Originality 5/5
      Ending 4.3/5




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