''A Stolen Life: A Memoir'' is a true crime book by American kidnapping victim Jaycee Lee Dugard about the 18 years she spent while sequestered and enslaved with her captors in Antioch, California. The memoir dissects what she did to survive and cope mentally with extreme abuse. The book reached No. 1 on Amazon's sales rankings a day before release and topped ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list hardcover nonfiction for six weeks after release. ''A Stolen Life'' was published on July 12, 2011, by

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

. In 2016, Dugard followed up ''A Stolen Life'' by publishing ''Freedom: My Book of Firsts,'' dealing with her life after captivity.

Narrative

In 1991, eleven-year-old Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped by Phillip and Nancy Garrido, who tased her with a stun gun before dragging her into their car as Dugard walked to her school bus stop near her home in

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, which is south of South Lake Tahoe, California. While in captivity, Garrido raped her for years, impregnating her twice, resulting in her giving birth to two daughters. Despite a sustained investigation, Dugard was not found until 2009, eighteen years after her abduction. ''A Stolen Life'' is the story of Dugard's 18-year ordeal and was written as part of her therapy with Rebecca Bailey, who specializes in post-trauma family reunification. Dugard further says that she wrote the memoir to provide an in-depth look at what captives like her have endured, and to reach other survivors. Before her abduction, Dugard states that she had dealt with an abusive stepfather, and her biological father was absent. After she was rescued, Dugard and her family were awarded a twenty million dollar settlement for the failure of the parole officers assigned to Garrido, a convicted felon, to recognize the situation Dugard was involved in specifically her enslavement.

Critical reception

The publisher

initially printed 200,000 copies, and later printed another 15,000 to meet demand. A day before its official release the book reached the top of Amazon's sales rankings. MariaL. LaGanga, writing for the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' wrote that "''A Stolen Life'' chronicles her growth from victim to survivor, from terror to strength. While it is also an indictment of the parole system and a meditation on loneliness." Janet Maslin, reviewing the memoir for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' described Dugard as courageous and dignified in recounting such a traumatic life experience.

Narrative

Critical reception

References

Further reading