Author: Hollie Overton
Rating: 5/5
Summary:
Held captive for eight years, Lily has grown from a teenager to an adult in a small basement prison. Her daughter Sky has been a captive her whole life. But one day their captor leaves the deadbolt unlocked.
This is what happens next...
...to her twin sister, to her mother, to her daughter...and to her captor.
Review:
I've had this on my TBR since before it came out last year. I love psychological thrillers in most forms and have an odd obsession with [true] crime. While this book was not based on a true story, it pulled a lot from the author's childhood as well as crimes we know of such as Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart.
Let me start by saying that I hate POV shifts. If I hadn't wanted to read this so bad I would never have picked it up because of that. Every chapter is a different narrator, shifting between Lily, her sister Abby, her mother Eve, and her captor Rick. Somehow this worked though.
Lily was kept captive by Rick for 8 years and in that time had a daughter, Sky. Now when I read that I wondered how this would differ from Room by Emma Donoghue (which I loved). It's so different thought. This book begins with Lily finding her freedom, and follows the treacherous path of fitting back into her broken family.
There were enough turns that I didn't see the ending coming for sure, and there was enough character depth that I wasn't aching for too much more. The only thing I really wanted more of is how Sky, Lily's daughter, grew in the months after their escape. The author touches on her heavily for the first half of the book, but then she falls by the wayside.
Excerpt:
Lily had been so consumed with keeping Sky safe, with making sure that Rick was caught, that she hadn't had time to really take everything in. But now, in the early-morning hours, Lily stood watching the sun as it began to make its way over the horizon. Lily had missed thousands of sunrises, and now here she was, gazing at the glorious start of a brand-new day. Bursts of golden yellow, burnt orange, and splashes of red all mingled together--a sunrise so picturesque that it couldn't possibly be real. Below her, the city was coming to life. Nurses huddled together outside sucking on their cigarettes. Worried family members paced back and forth, talking on their cell phones. But not a single one of them seemed to notice the unimaginable beauty unfolding around them.
Pay attention, Lily thought. All of this could be taken from them in an instant, and no one cared. That's not true, Lily told herself. I care. There was nothing she cared about more than this sunrise, and then it struck her. This wasn't a onetime thing. Lily would see the sun rise again and again. She had a lifetime of sunrises ahead of her.
Lily pressed her forehead against the cool pane of glass and imagined sunbathing in the backyard until her skin turned golden brown. In the spring, she would lace up her sneakers, and with the scorching sun beating down on her back, she would run until her lungs ached. There were so many possibilities now. She could do all those things and more. She was free.
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