Story of a Stolen Girl

Perspective: 3rd person mostly limited alternating perspectives*

Tense: Simple Past

Length: 342 pages

Story of a Stolen Girl is an engaging story highlighting an important issue. The story depicts Darby Richards, a 18 year old girl who is abducted and sex trafficked.

The story starts as a bit of a kidnapping procedural, not that I have ever read such a book before. Story details, how the kidnapping happens, what the family might do in response, the role of the police in the investigation, and the conditions of the kidnapped, to name some of the elements.

The book paints a different picture compared to how kidnappings are portrayed on television. As an example, when the ransomer calls (if they do), the police are likely not sitting right next to the phone: the family of the kidnapped has to face the kidnapper on their own. It was also interesting to see the differences between the police’s work on the case vs the work of the private company that specializes in abduction recovery.

The dialogue is sometimes a bit stilted. The character Esma doesn’ use contractions, which results in lines like this “She drew her sweater around her neck as Esma said, ‘The Room is chilly. I am glad I wore my jacket.’” This reads very mechanical and clunky to me. I think just a contraction like “I’m” would have helped make it read more naturally.

The story is interesting and, like a good thriller, I was always wondering what would happen next, which was often a surprise. I’ll go through one of the surprises, so if you want to avoid that, skip the next two paragraphs.

The story takes an interesting turn when Darby’s mother, Nina decides she needs to save Darby herself, by getting enough botox to kill a small horse. Just kidding, but she does get surgery to look younger and intentionally gets herself abducted.

Overall, I did enjoy the book, despite, or maybe because of some of its flaws. When Nina decides she needs to save Darby (her daughter) personally; she goes on a monologue that could have been spoken by batman. “I must rescue Darby myself. Traffickers have her. Vile scum, now she’s being sold… to men, monsters.” Just read that in the dark knight’s voice, I think you will be surprised how well it works.

There are a few passages within the book that have the feeling of being more dated. Specific references to race and gender-roles may be off putting to some readers. Examples being the word “exotic” in reference to someone with darker skin as well as some stereotypical portrayals of ethnic groups.

All in all, Story of a Stolen Girl makes for an entertaining and at times humorous read, as long as the reader is able to look past some of its surface level flaws. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn about kidnapping or vigilante justice

* The author does break some conventions of limited perspective, making a surprising perspective switch to a non-perspective character for dramatic effect.