A Real Doozy including Jaycee Dugard

So today, my pets, I have FOUR books to review for you.

 I will start from the beginning.

Cry Wolf by Tami Hoag

I actually read this book a couple weeks ago, but somehow it slipped through the Book Review cracks. Here is what the back cover has to say:

In the rural parishes of Louisiana's French Trianglge, young women are disappearing one by one, only to turn up on the banks of the bayou, strangled and cash aside where they are sure to be found. But there is one trophy the killer prizes above all others, one woman who must be silenced forever...

Attorney Laurel Chandler did not come back to Bayou Breaux to seek justice. That once-burned obsession had destroyed her credibility, her career, her marriage - and nearly her sanity. but when a ruthless predator strikes too close to home, she's lured into a perverse game from which there may be no escape. Once before, Laurel's cries against a monstrous evil went unanswered. Who will listen now?

I ran across this book during the moving process with my mom and decided to give it a go. I'm glad I did. It was you basic murder/thriller book with an unexpected romance, but it really sucked me in. There were parts that I saw coming, but it definitely had a lot of twists and turns that kept me second guessing my gut feelings. And then the ending was a real shocker.

I think one thing that kept me interested in this story was the setting. I'm not used to reading books based in Louisiana and the bayous.

Out of 5 stars, I would give it 3.

2nd Chance by James Patterson

This is the second Women's Murder Club book that I have read.

The Women's Murder Clib is back! A brilliantly diabolical killer is murdering people from every walk of life. The deaths seem unrelated but police homicide inspector Lindsay Boxer senses a connection and, together with medical examiner Claire, assistant DA Jill, and Chronicle reporter Cindy, finds a link that sends a chill through the entire nation. This killer's motives are unspeakable.

The thing that I am finding is that I like the way these story lines change. A lot of times in these series of books, the storylines end up being very similar. The characters are all getting more and more developed, and little by little you learn more about them.

The book didn't completely wow me, but I did enjoy it.

Another 3 out of 5 stars.

3rd Degree by James Patterson

The Women's Murder Club returns in a shockingly suspensful thriller. Plunging into a burning town house, Detective LIndsay Boxer discovers three dead bodies... and a mysterious message at the scene. When more corpses turn up, Lindsday asks her friends, Claire Washburn of the medical examiner's office, Assistant DA Jill Bernhardt, and San Francisco Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas to help her find a murderer who vows to kill every three days. Even more terrifying, he has targeted one of the four friends. Which one will it be?

This one seemed so much deeper than the first two books of the series. I felt really invested in what was going on to the characters in this one, which I think indicates a good book. I do have to say that there were some loose ends in this story that I wish had been tied up for me, and I don't think that it will happen in the next book.

Just like the last of this series, I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Last but not least by any stretch of the imagination, A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard.

I think most of us are already familiar with the basics of Jaycee's story and what this book is about, but I will tell you what the back says anyways:

In the summer of June of 1991, I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friensd and a mother that loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.

For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.

On August 26, 2009, I took my name back.

My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don't think of myself as a victim, I simply survived an intolerable situation.

A Stolen Life is my story - in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it.

As you read this book, you immediately feel like you are there in her mind reliving these things. When I first started reading it, I felt a little caught off guard by how young her writing is, and how her chapters seemed to jump from topic to topic. But then I think about it and remember that this is exactly how it was for her. She had such a young mind when she was ripped out of the life she knew that this was the way her brain was working. It made me feel like I was there seeing it.

This book is so eye opening, and so disturbing all at the same time. There were times that I was reading it on my lunch break and literally felt like throwing up because of the some of the things she was going through. But she was SUCH a brave person. She did what she had to do to protect herself, and later on, to protect her children.

Before reading this book, I thought about Jaycee Dugard and couldn't help but ask myself the same questions that I know thousands of people asked when hearing about her story, and it was "why didn't you do something? you were out in the world and you didn't tell anybody or ask for help?" But in reading this story, I understand more.

She was scared. She knew that Phillip and Nancy were not all there. And by the time she was leaving the house with Nancy, she had her girls to worry about. She couldn't risk going to someone at the store and saying "look, I was kidnapped 10 years ago, please call the police" because she couldn't risk losing her kids.

Even when the day finally came that things were coming apart at the seams for the Garridos, it was still so engrained in her to lie and keep up the story that she avoided telling the truth until the very end.

I know this is a long review, but I think it's worth it. The writing isn't perfect, but she stopped going to school at age 11, so what do you expect? But I think regardless of that fact, it is a great book to read and such a good thing to be aware of.

Out of 5 stars, I'd give it a 4.5

Thanks for bearing with me through this extremely long post, I promise I'll try to stay on top of my book reviews from now on!+