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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
Thank you to the publisher for sending me this book to read and review!
Rust & Stardust is based on a bit of New Jersey history that I wasn’t all too familiar with before I heard of the book, but I knew that I was intrigued when I read up on Sally Horner and her experiences. There isn’t much in terms of information about Sally and Frank, but I can only imagine the hell she was put through. The author was able to bring Sally’s story to life, and I’m sure the amount of research she has done to do so wasn’t easy to stomach.
I’m still at a lost for words on where to start this book review. I hesitate to say Rust & Stardust was amazing because it depicts some seriously heavy scenes. But the harrowing story of a little girl kidnapped, raped, and tortured over the span of two years had a lot of heartwarming moments, but there were also moments when I was yelling at the passing characters in the book to do something, anything, to help this little girl.
Obviously, the true details of Sally Horner’s two years with Frank LaSalle died with the both of them, but the author did an amazing job imagining what life would have been like during their time together. From the start, Sally is naive and innocent – at 11 years old, she’s caught by who SHE believes is an FBI agent, but in the 1950s, children weren’t constantly on high alert like they are now. She took his word for it, and their journey together began.
By the end of Rust & Stardust, she has evolved out of her innocence because of all of her experiences with Frank, the bad definitely outweighing the good. She is no longer the happy, curious child she was at the start. Sally maintains a sorrowful appearance even with a smile on her face, and it’s evident that her life will absolutely never be the same. She feels ashamed of what Frank has done to her, but in the end she is so desperate to be free of him that her shame doesn’t matter anymore. She just wants to go home.
Each chapter is from a different point of view, and some would be thrown off by the amount of people who had a say. Off the top of my head, I can count at least six different characters who were given a voice, even for one chapter. But this setup really helped establish how many people were affected by Sally Horner’s disappearance, how many people were willing to look the other way rather than help her. In the end, this method made me more emotionally invested in the story.
Sally Horner’s life was irrevocably changed on that day she was taken by pedophile Frank LaSalle. Although I’ve heard of this event from older people who remember it, Sally Horner is most remembered as the little girl who inspired Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, a tale about an unreliable narrator who becomes obsessed with his 12-year-old stepdaughter and begins a sexual relationship with her. But Sally Horner’s life wasn’t just a sidenote in Nabokov’s novel. Her story should be known as her own, for her tragedy didn’t stop the day Frank LaSalle went to prison. I loved every second of Rust & Stardust, and I want everyone to read and know Sally’s story.
Rust & Stardust is based on a bit of New Jersey history that I wasn’t all too familiar with before I heard of the book, but I knew that I was intrigued when I read up on Sally Horner and her experiences. There isn’t much in terms of information about Sally and Frank, but I can only imagine the hell she was put through. The author was able to bring Sally’s story to life, and I’m sure the amount of research she has done to do so wasn’t easy to stomach.
I’m still at a lost for words on where to start this book review. I hesitate to say Rust & Stardust was amazing because it depicts some seriously heavy scenes. But the harrowing story of a little girl kidnapped, raped, and tortured over the span of two years had a lot of heartwarming moments, but there were also moments when I was yelling at the passing characters in the book to do something, anything, to help this little girl.
Obviously, the true details of Sally Horner’s two years with Frank LaSalle died with the both of them, but the author did an amazing job imagining what life would have been like during their time together. From the start, Sally is naive and innocent – at 11 years old, she’s caught by who SHE believes is an FBI agent, but in the 1950s, children weren’t constantly on high alert like they are now. She took his word for it, and their journey together began.
By the end of Rust & Stardust, she has evolved out of her innocence because of all of her experiences with Frank, the bad definitely outweighing the good. She is no longer the happy, curious child she was at the start. Sally maintains a sorrowful appearance even with a smile on her face, and it’s evident that her life will absolutely never be the same. She feels ashamed of what Frank has done to her, but in the end she is so desperate to be free of him that her shame doesn’t matter anymore. She just wants to go home.
Each chapter is from a different point of view, and some would be thrown off by the amount of people who had a say. Off the top of my head, I can count at least six different characters who were given a voice, even for one chapter. But this setup really helped establish how many people were affected by Sally Horner’s disappearance, how many people were willing to look the other way rather than help her. In the end, this method made me more emotionally invested in the story.
Sally Horner’s life was irrevocably changed on that day she was taken by pedophile Frank LaSalle. Although I’ve heard of this event from older people who remember it, Sally Horner is most remembered as the little girl who inspired Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, a tale about an unreliable narrator who becomes obsessed with his 12-year-old stepdaughter and begins a sexual relationship with her. But Sally Horner’s life wasn’t just a sidenote in Nabokov’s novel. Her story should be known as her own, for her tragedy didn’t stop the day Frank LaSalle went to prison. I loved every second of Rust & Stardust, and I want everyone to read and know Sally’s story.
I call this the Botox book because my eyebrows were raised to my hairline the entire time I read it. I could not put this book down. So many twists and turns and an ending that I didn’t see coming. I had mixed feelings about the ending because, really, mentally surviving what that girl had been through is overwhelming to consider at best. Great book for rainy weekend, not one to read if you are trying to fall asleep as I was up later than usual as I could not put this book down once I started it.
This was one of my favorite books this year. 5 stars, I would highly recommend.
I was hesitant to read this one due to the dark, graphic, sensitive nature of the novel. However, I am so glad that I ended up reading it! Yes, it was very depressing in parts, but I personally found it very well done. In my opinion, the author left many of the horrible scenes to your imagination, not getting too graphic/detailed, but instead focusing on Sally's feelings, allowing you to ache for her, while still being able to read the story. For me, the beginning was the hardest to read because you knew what was coming and there was nothing you could do. Initially, I had to set this one down a few times and pick up something happier, but as the story went on, Sally's allies at each stop gave me hope and helped me continue on through the novel. Sally's gut-wrenching, heartbreaking journey is one that will stick with me for a long time. Sally is the kind of character that gets underneath your skin & her story will resonate with you long after you finish the novel. Probably in my top 5 of 2018- definitely add it to your list if it's not already on there!
I was hesitant to read this one due to the dark, graphic, sensitive nature of the novel. However, I am so glad that I ended up reading it! Yes, it was very depressing in parts, but I personally found it very well done. In my opinion, the author left many of the horrible scenes to your imagination, not getting too graphic/detailed, but instead focusing on Sally's feelings, allowing you to ache for her, while still being able to read the story. For me, the beginning was the hardest to read because you knew what was coming and there was nothing you could do. Initially, I had to set this one down a few times and pick up something happier, but as the story went on, Sally's allies at each stop gave me hope and helped me continue on through the novel. Sally's gut-wrenching, heartbreaking journey is one that will stick with me for a long time. Sally is the kind of character that gets underneath your skin & her story will resonate with you long after you finish the novel. Probably in my top 5 of 2018- definitely add it to your list if it's not already on there!
Didn’t find out til the end that this was based on a true story. I disliked the entire story and now I wonder how much the author embellished.
I’ve got a pretty strong stomach, so it’s not often that I need to take a break from a book because I’m having a physical reaction to it. This book is incredible and heartbreaking all at the same time. I had to struggle my way through it, and somehow I still didn’t want it to end.
This is one of those books you don't want to say you loved because it was such a heartbreaking story. I appreciate the way this story was told, even thought heartbreaking at times the author did a great job at giving Sally a voice since we never will never actually know all she went through and was feeling. I personally love books that are written like this where each chapter is a different characters perspective. I had never heard of this true life kidnapping and would recommend you not research it before reading. This will be one of my favorites this year!
I was unaware that Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita was supposedly inspired by a true crime. In 1948 in Camden, New Jersey, 11-year-old Sally Horner stole a notebook; the theft was an initiation into a girls’ club she wanted desperately to join. She was spotted by Frank LaSalle, a recently released convict whose rap sheet included statutory rape and enticing a minor. He posed as an F.B.I. agent who told her she would be arrested if she did not follow his instructions. He convinced her she must leave with him to Atlantic City. Thus began her two-year long kidnapping and serial molestation.
In the Author’s Note, T. Greenwood states her purpose in writing Rust & Stardust: “While I drew heavily on Sally’s heartbreaking story, this novel is ultimately an imagined rendering of the years that she spent on the road with her captor and of the impact of her abduction on those she encountered along the way as well as those she left behind.”
The perspective of a number of people is given. The focus is on Sally, Ella (Sally’s mother), Susan (Sally’s sister), and Al (Susan’s husband), but the views of other minor characters, both real and imagined, are also given. The one person who is not given a voice is Frank.
The events depicted occurred 60 years ago when the phrase “stranger danger” did not exist. I understand that young girls would have been much more innocent and naïve, but would they be as naïve as Sally is for so long? Susan finds some consolation in learning how Frank lured her sister; she feels better knowing Sally must have been terrified: “Sally wasn’t a fool, only a scared little girl.” Though Sally is supposedly an intelligent girl with boundless curiosity who excels in school, she believes Frank’s fabrications even as they become more and more ludicrous?
Ella is an even more problematic character. It is difficult to have much sympathy for her. Even in 1948, would a mother send her daughter on a vacation with a man she meets for the first time when her daughter boards a bus with him? The man is supposedly the father of Sally’s classmate with whom Sally will be vacationing in Atlantic City, but Ella has never met this classmate either. Susan questions her mother’s judgement: “She tried to understand how it was that her mother had handed her own child off to this criminal. She’d walked her to the bus depot, delivered her to him like a gift. She couldn’t understand how Ella had been so gullible, so stupid.” When Sally’s letters make no reference to her classmate and only mention activities with the father, shouldn’t Ella start questioning? Later, Ella even says, “’Sally. I forgive her for what she done with that man.’” Her treatment of her daughter once she returns is hard to understand. Given how consequential her comments to her husband proved to be, one would expect her to be better able to control her tongue. When Sally expresses a desire to visit the woman responsible for her rescue, Ella says, “’Of course not . . . What’s the matter with you, wantin’ to go back there? . . . You’d think you missed it there. Living in squalor with that monster. What’s the matter with you?’” Of course Ella suffered, but she is the adult and should be more concerned about her daughter’s feelings than her own.
There are issues with Frank’s behaviour. At one point, he tells Sally, “’Your daddy killed himself rather than spend a minute more in the house with you and your crippled mama.’” Frank would have known about the suicide of Sally’s stepfather which had occurred years earlier? Ruth writes letters to Sally though she suspects they never reach her, “Not if Frank got to them first. Every day that went by without a response, she became convinced that he was confiscating them. Hiding them from her.” Undoubtedly Frank would have read those letters, the content of which should have aroused his suspicions, so why would he believe a later letter from Ruth in which she suggests he and her husband have a job for him in California?
The book has too much detail. Thankfully, the scenes of rape are not graphically depicted, but the book is overly long. There is suspense at the beginning but a pattern develops and the book drags: Sally meets someone who suspects there is something wrong but is unable or unwilling to help so her situation doesn’t change until she meets someone else who could help her but misses the opportunity to assist, etc. Several of the fictional characters added (e.g. Sister Mary Katherine and Lena and Doris) seem to have been added solely to create suspense. Will this person help? Then there’s the overly dramatic scene where Frank jumps out of the shower just as Sally is trying to use a phone. He can hear so clearly through a closed door with the shower running and moves so quickly that she still has the handset in her hand?
Since the author’s purpose is to imagine the impact of Sally’s abduction, why does the novel continue for so long afterwards? Do we really need to know what happens to minor characters that are figments of the author’s imagination? And the references to luminous stars in each of the last five chapters are heavy-handed symbolism.
This book tells a heartbreaking story which is often a harrowing read. The content often left me feeling uncomfortable. Though the author insists “this is, in the end, a work of fiction,” I felt that in some ways Sally was being exploited yet again. I am not in favour of censorship, but I wonder why not use Lolita as inspiration and write a novel from the perspective of Dolores Haze and those she encounters?
Note: I received a digital galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
In the Author’s Note, T. Greenwood states her purpose in writing Rust & Stardust: “While I drew heavily on Sally’s heartbreaking story, this novel is ultimately an imagined rendering of the years that she spent on the road with her captor and of the impact of her abduction on those she encountered along the way as well as those she left behind.”
The perspective of a number of people is given. The focus is on Sally, Ella (Sally’s mother), Susan (Sally’s sister), and Al (Susan’s husband), but the views of other minor characters, both real and imagined, are also given. The one person who is not given a voice is Frank.
The events depicted occurred 60 years ago when the phrase “stranger danger” did not exist. I understand that young girls would have been much more innocent and naïve, but would they be as naïve as Sally is for so long? Susan finds some consolation in learning how Frank lured her sister; she feels better knowing Sally must have been terrified: “Sally wasn’t a fool, only a scared little girl.” Though Sally is supposedly an intelligent girl with boundless curiosity who excels in school, she believes Frank’s fabrications even as they become more and more ludicrous?
Ella is an even more problematic character. It is difficult to have much sympathy for her. Even in 1948, would a mother send her daughter on a vacation with a man she meets for the first time when her daughter boards a bus with him? The man is supposedly the father of Sally’s classmate with whom Sally will be vacationing in Atlantic City, but Ella has never met this classmate either. Susan questions her mother’s judgement: “She tried to understand how it was that her mother had handed her own child off to this criminal. She’d walked her to the bus depot, delivered her to him like a gift. She couldn’t understand how Ella had been so gullible, so stupid.” When Sally’s letters make no reference to her classmate and only mention activities with the father, shouldn’t Ella start questioning? Later, Ella even says, “’Sally. I forgive her for what she done with that man.’” Her treatment of her daughter once she returns is hard to understand. Given how consequential her comments to her husband proved to be, one would expect her to be better able to control her tongue. When Sally expresses a desire to visit the woman responsible for her rescue, Ella says, “’Of course not . . . What’s the matter with you, wantin’ to go back there? . . . You’d think you missed it there. Living in squalor with that monster. What’s the matter with you?’” Of course Ella suffered, but she is the adult and should be more concerned about her daughter’s feelings than her own.
There are issues with Frank’s behaviour. At one point, he tells Sally, “’Your daddy killed himself rather than spend a minute more in the house with you and your crippled mama.’” Frank would have known about the suicide of Sally’s stepfather which had occurred years earlier? Ruth writes letters to Sally though she suspects they never reach her, “Not if Frank got to them first. Every day that went by without a response, she became convinced that he was confiscating them. Hiding them from her.” Undoubtedly Frank would have read those letters, the content of which should have aroused his suspicions, so why would he believe a later letter from Ruth in which she suggests he and her husband have a job for him in California?
The book has too much detail. Thankfully, the scenes of rape are not graphically depicted, but the book is overly long. There is suspense at the beginning but a pattern develops and the book drags: Sally meets someone who suspects there is something wrong but is unable or unwilling to help so her situation doesn’t change until she meets someone else who could help her but misses the opportunity to assist, etc. Several of the fictional characters added (e.g. Sister Mary Katherine and Lena and Doris) seem to have been added solely to create suspense. Will this person help? Then there’s the overly dramatic scene where Frank jumps out of the shower just as Sally is trying to use a phone. He can hear so clearly through a closed door with the shower running and moves so quickly that she still has the handset in her hand?
Since the author’s purpose is to imagine the impact of Sally’s abduction, why does the novel continue for so long afterwards? Do we really need to know what happens to minor characters that are figments of the author’s imagination? And the references to luminous stars in each of the last five chapters are heavy-handed symbolism.
This book tells a heartbreaking story which is often a harrowing read. The content often left me feeling uncomfortable. Though the author insists “this is, in the end, a work of fiction,” I felt that in some ways Sally was being exploited yet again. I am not in favour of censorship, but I wonder why not use Lolita as inspiration and write a novel from the perspective of Dolores Haze and those she encounters?
Note: I received a digital galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
Incredibly emotional and wrenching.
I am often fascinated by true crime or dark, twisted fiction, so this fictional retelling of the story of 11-year-old Sally Horner, who was kidnapped and held captive for nearly 2 years, caught my interest.
Beautifully told, not only from Sally's point of view, but from her mother's and older sister's and many of the people who Sally comes into contact with.
I am often fascinated by true crime or dark, twisted fiction, so this fictional retelling of the story of 11-year-old Sally Horner, who was kidnapped and held captive for nearly 2 years, caught my interest.
Beautifully told, not only from Sally's point of view, but from her mother's and older sister's and many of the people who Sally comes into contact with.
As you read reviews of this book, you'll see the words "heart wrenching" used over and over again. There are no better words to describe this fictional retelling of the real-life kidnapping and sexual assault of 11-year old Sally Horner in 1948. I knew it was going to be a tough read, and I appreciated that the author was not needlessly graphic about Sally's abuse. I was captivated by the narration of the audio version as well as by the story itself, and listened it over two days. Other emotions I felt while listening were anger, frustration, sadness, and hope. I think the author did a wonderful job bringing this story to life. I docked it one star because some portions dragged a little bit and could have probably been shortened. This book definitely kept me on the edge of my seat and it will probably stay with me for a while. I'll need to read a comedy next, I think.