First published 2013
Elizabeth Smart was fourteen when religious fanatic Brian David Mitchell and his wife Wanda Barzee took her from her Salt Lake City bedroom. They kept her chained and disguised, threatening to kill her family if she tried to flee. For nine months she endured constant terror while clinging to hope. Smart devised a strategy to manipulate her captors into returning to Utah, where police rescued her in March 2003. Ten years later, she breaks her silence about surviving each terrifying day. Smart describes how her Mormon faith sustained her sanity during the ordeal and gave her courage to testify against Mitchell and Barzee at their trial. She reveals the psychological tactics she used to stay alive and the long process of rebuilding her life afterward. Smart shows how she transformed from victim to advocate, creating a foundation to protect children and speaking publicly about prevention. The memoir traces her journey from that nightmare bedroom through marriage and mission work to finding peace.
Genres: abuse, crime, autobiography, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, overcoming-adversity
Setting: Salt Lake City, Utah
Period: 2003
308 pages · Hardcover · St. Martin's Press
Content warnings: child-abuse, kidnapping, violence