Every chapter (essay) made me cry. Every woman has been abused. Reading this during a holiday season probably didn't help, but there are amazing stories.

Wally Lamb hasn't come out with his next terrific novel because he has been working with woman convicts in York,CT. He has been helping them "find their voice" thus helping them find themselves in the most dismal of circumstances. What amazes me the most about these stories, is the similarities between the women. Poverty, abuse, and mental illness and drug abuse. is in each woman's past. The stories are real, and so are the women in them. Some have gone on to great things, others are still incarcerated. To anyone who thinks we need to cut back on educational opportunities for the incarcerated need to read this book, and see what self esteem ( from successfully completing a class, or writing)does for these women.

I spent years dying for a follow up to I Know This Much Is True. When I read it was going to be a non-fiction book, I was all "maaaaaan! bummer." Yeah, I was stupid. This is one of the most amazing books I've ever read. If you don't read it, you are stupid!

While I was interested in reading this book, I also had some healthy skepticism about what would be written on those pages. I was quite suprised.

I will admit, I had a bit of a stereotype in my head of the two types of women most often found in prison; the first being the angry, easily-enraged woman who is unremorseful of her actions, and in fact feels justified many times, and bitter about being locked up. Someone who is just passing time waiting to get out, rather than trying to improve their life, and stay away from crime.

Inmate stereotype - that of the "constant victim". They can manipulate with emotion. They will admit to their crimes, they will cry about them, they will apologize, but it always boils down to the fact that they are never responsible for their actions. They were always forced, or tricked, or manipulated into their crimes.

So, with those stereotypes in my head, I really was expecting this book to be full of stories about how these women were "innocent", or, if willing to admit to their crimes, that instead everything bad that ever happened to them is the reason they commited them.

Instead, I found that while, yes, these women related in most of their stories some of the struggles they went through as children and teenagers, including the stories you would expect of molestation, physical and emotional abuse, rape, teenage pregnancy, drugs, and mental illness, but they weren't being used as an excuse for committing their crimes - instead, the stories appear more self-examinatory than that, as though, rather than trying to justify and excuse their actions through telling the stories of their lives, they are in fact attempting to deal with it, and maybe, if only for themselves, to try to shed light on the turning point when it all seemed to go so wrong.

Unfortunately, these women will never really know for sure what that moment was. It would be a great fortune to the justice system, and society, if we could look back at the lives on criminals and narrow the timeline down to the one time or one thing that made them cross the line. Then, we could hope to intervene before they had a chance to 'break', and exhibit any criminal behaviour. It would also help if we all reacted and dealt with bad situations in exactly the same way - if only 2+2 ALWAYS equaled 4 in these types of situations. If only every person who was ever beaten by a parent reacted the exact same way to the trauma - then, once a situation was revealed, we as a society would know how this was going to affect the victim, and fix it. Instead, every second that goes by, another person turns victim, and it will be years down the line before we can ever hope to see the effect such a trauma has had on them.

That, more than anything, was what I took from this book. It's not an excuse, or a justification, unfortuntely, it's just a sad fact - most of the people in jail, were at some point, a victim themselves. They were a child hiding under their bed while their father hit their mother, they were the scared little girl wide awake all night long huddled under the covers waiting to hear the heavy footsteps in the hall, and praying that they continued past the door, they were the teenage boy who was teased in school day in and day out... no, it does not justify their crimes, or excuse them. Instead, it just gives us a little more understanding. If you've ever wondered how someone could commit a certain crime, it gives you just a glimpse of the picture of how they could get there.

Most of all, it makes you realize that these women are real human beings, despite their crimes. That, if not for a twist of fate, if not for a chance in circumstances, you could very well standing in their shoes too, trying to look back on your own life and figure out if there was one point where it all started to go wrong. Have you ever been so angry that you wanted to hit someone you loved? Have you ever been so desperate for something you wanted that for just a second the thought of slipping it into your pocket and walking out of the store crossed your mind? Have you ever gotten so caught up in a moment you felt as though you had no control? There is a tiny bit of a criminal in all of us, buried deep. Have you ever wondered just what might make your inner criminal come out?

These women, and good 'ol Wally deserve every star. I cried, laughed, cringed, and felt a deep sense of empathy for them all.

Second book of this set will be in my shopping cart soon!

I found this gem of a book in a used bookstore in Titusville, Fl. Once I started reading I could not put this book down. I fell in love with all the women’s stories and their hearts. Wally Lamb is a caring and amazing author because he went to the York Correctional Institution and created a writing workshop for the women who wanted to create memoirs.

One of my favorite stories is called “Hair Chronicles,” by Tabatha Rowley. She writes her story taking the reader through her life by remembering how she wore her hair. My favorite hair she wore was when she had a fro.

This book is great because it shows how writing can be therapeutic and aid in expressing oneself. These women felt empowered after telling their stories. The high level of abuse and assault these women endured even before they went to prison could be surprising to some readers. But do not think that this read will be depressing. These stories are uplifting because the women’s spirits show through their writings to reach the reader and they are nothing short of beautiful.

this book was life changing. .
..waiting for the sequel from the library. amazing book.

“The death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill?” - Bryan Stevenson

I found myself thinking a lot of that quote by Bryan Stevenson a lot while reading this book, which is a collection of stories by women incarcerated at York Correctional Institute. The commonalities in many of these stories are heartbreaking, but deserve to be read to make us think collectively about the goal of our current prison industrial complex, and the goals of mass incarceration.

Read for the Read Harder 2019 Challenge task: A book written in prison.

Picked this up in a thrift store since I usually read anything by Wally Lamb. I was interested enough to read a little of it and got about halfway through before I just don't need to read any more women growing up with little-to-no parenting, drifting any way the wind blows them, or women who have totally numbed themselves out. Depressing, sad, discouraging.

Wow. This book makes me want to start a writing group at my local prison. "Victories against voicelessness" indeed.

Beautiful tribute to the lives of many who are misunderstood, judged, overlooked or even forgotten by society. These genuine, heartfelt and sometimes gut-wrenching stories provide and promote insight, perspective, compassion and empathy. Everyone has a story and these are extra powerful, emotional and meaningful stories that I would recommend for anyone looking to strengthen their love, support and acceptance of humanity.

Wally Lamb( She’s Come Undone) and the women of York Correctional Institute put together testimonies in the form of short stories about “how they were imprisoned by abuse, rejection, and self- destructive impulses long before they entered the criminal justice system.” Riveting is the word that comes to mind for the writing that came out of Lamb’s volunteer writing group. Each story is a gem on its own. The writing is incredible. Through the writing process that covered several years, Lamb,and Ms Griffith, another writing teacher, helped the women to find themselves and hopefully work to a better day. There is no poor me or really how their crime happened. It is more a self analysis for recovery done through the written word. This book stays with you after you finish the last page. It provides another way of looking at those incarcerated other than bad people. Also a good reminder of how mental illness and abuse can effect others. It offers hours of discussion.