Lucky

Rating:
Summary: Don't know anyone who has ever been raped? Think again.
Review: This book is a sad statement about the # of women who get raped in America, and how few report it, or seek/get a conviction. A sad statement about how a rape victim is victimized again and again throughout the reporting process and legal process.

This book, in many ways reminds me of the books I read about the Holocaust. It's a brutal, horrible story that must be told and must be read. This book, I'm sure, was as hard for the author to write as it is for us to read.

Rating:
Summary: A Memoir That Reads Like a Novel
Review: Thankfully the success of Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones has brought her previously published and equally well-written memoir to light. I actually read Lucky first, and was amazed at Sebold's ability to gain insight from her real life experience and put it to such great use in her later work. Equally impressive was Sebold's amazing ability to recall and recount in such detail the experience of her rape and its aftermath. The reader learns much about so many aspects of a survivor's experience, including the impact on relationships with family and friends, the challenges within the legal/criminal justice system, the emotional/psychological ramifications, and just what it takes to truly SURVIVE such an experience. An inspiring read!

Rating:
Summary: Honest, raw and well written
Review: Sebold has a true talent for telling her story. And it is a story full of pain, healing, rage and sadness. I admire her courage in sharing her tale.

Sebold is eleoquent, and shares the raw details in a way that disturbs, but does not alienate the reader. I give this book a 4 stars out of 5, as I was truly entranced by her story.

"Lucky" allows the reader to look into Sebold, and also better explains her characterizations in "The Lovely Bones". (although not a necessity to read it first). I can see Susie Salmon in Sebold, or is Sebold really Susie??

A brave portrayal of a personal and tragic event in Sebold's life. I admire her for sharing this book with the world.

Rating:
Summary: A Book Everyone Should Read
Review: I picked up this book after finishing "The Lovely Bones". I had read an article that mentioned this book and decided I had to read it. It was the most incredible memoir of rape I have ever allowed myself to read. After being raped 4 times by 4 seperate men, I had found it difficult to relate to many of the books out there on the subject. But Sebold's heart-wrenching account of the rape and life afterwards helped me deal with many feelings I had not allowed myself to deal with before. I could relate especially to the way her parents treated her when she came home from school the summer after it happened. It made me feel like I wasn't the only one who went through this.

Anyone who has been through or knows anyone who has suffered a violent sexual attack should read this book. It humanizes the event and gives you a real and rare perspective on how the victim feels.

Rating:
Summary: Better than The Lovely Bones
Review: I went back and read this book after reading Alice Sebold's best seller The Lovely Bones, and I have to say that this book is better. If you enjoyed her other book then this is a must read.

Rating:
Summary: A review
Review: Sebold does an excellent job telling the story of her own rape with enough distance for the reader to feel develope his or her own perspective, while simultaneously explaining her innermost feelings. Unlike many other stories of rape, she leaves the reader in the understanding that despite how far she has come since the actual rape, it is still something she deals with on a daily basis.

Rating:
Summary: Is this reveiw lucky
Review: i have just finiched the book called lucky. Where Alice Sebold reveals how her life was changed and turned up side down when she had a bad thing happen to her at the first year of her attending to college. The author Alice sebold has wrote a great book called lucky it was about her life after she had been raped. she also has wrote another book called lovely bones which was about a little girl that was raped and killed. Alice has only two books but those book have became very popular very quick.she is a great new and up coming author.i really enjoyed this book very much. it explained everything that alice sebold felt and went though. the way people changed toward her and how she had changed herself. i believe that it would be very hard to write about something that would be hard to live though the first time. it was hard for me to read without feeling the pain, anger,and hurt that she wnet though and also have to overcome. the book also talks about the afterlife of the rape. This is a great book for all girls to read.

Rating:
Summary: WOW! Powerful and necessary read.
Review: This is a very powerful book. The opening chapter describes the brutal rape of the author at the end of her freshman year at University. The subsequent chapters deal with feelings of guilt and anger and her struggle to relate to those closest to her, her mother father and sister and good friends. She also has difficulties with the police who are depicted as something less than sympathetic. On her return to University her spots the rapist on the street and turns him into the police where he is subsequently charged and convicted through the courageous tenacity of Alice.
The power in the telling of this true story lies in the uncompromising steely eyed look and description of the emotions surrounding Alice's rape. How does the victim react to those who love her but are incapable or at least unable to express support in a meaningful way? How do the prejudices and biases harboured by police, friends, family and psychiatrists fail to give the needed support? And not only that, they blame the victim.
Then when a close friend of Alice is raped and Alice is not able to comfort or support her does it become clear that there is little anyone can offer the victim except warm and caring love, and even that is not enough and as Alice says at the end of the fourth chapter "No one can pull anyone back from anywhere. You save yourself or you remain unsaved."

In the final chapter "Aftermath" Alice describes her life during the next ten years and we see that the rape is not an incident in the past that one "gets over" but a defining moment that affects Alice and all rape victims in way that is permanent and like survivors of the Vietnam war is identified as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

As a man I wondered how would I respond to a rape victim. Is loving care the best we can do? It becomes evident that the only positive way is to work to prevent rapes. This is a book worth reading as difficult as that is. Alice Seabold has done a great service in telling her story. 4.5/5

Rating:
Summary: The one to read.
Review: While 'The Lovely Bones' deserves a wide audience, this is the one to read. A true crime autobiography, this account of Alice Sebold's rape, identification of her assailant, and depiction of his trial and conviction is a moving and exceptional read. It is a heroic tale, presenting both the heroism of her testimony and the heroism of her tenacity in committing herself to ultimate victory. Painfully honest in its details (principally with regard to the members of her family and their reactions) there is a final sense of collective redemption that parallels that of 'The Lovely Bones.' A powerful debut. Violence enters a sweet and fragile world and ends up wishing it hadn't. Read this book. Bonus: no political correctness here.

Rating:
Summary: Hell & Hope
Review: A college co-ed is brutally raped in her freshmen year. Six months later, while trying to sort out her shattered life, she spots her rapist near the university. Her relentless pursuit leads to his arrest and eventually a trial. Will retribution lead to salvation or does it just open the doorway to a darker journey? Author Alice Sebold provides passion and insight to this tragic story. "Lucky" is her autobiography.

Sebold pulls no punches in sharing her story. The violence rips you. The language cuts. Her revenge sears at your soul. Alice's despair leaves you hollow. The author is courageous in admitting all of the peculiarities about her family and acknowledging her own flaws. In doing so, she weaves an edgy story about physical and psychological terror, giving this reader a new perspective of rape and its punishing aftermath. By listening to the audio version, read by the author, you appreciate how two decades have only dusted a still very raw nerve.

This is no fairy tale with a Cinderella ending. However, Seybold shares a triumphant realization in the end. " . . . I live in a world where the two truths coexist, where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand."