Escape From The World Trade Center (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
I have a hard time rating this one because it's essentially the author's journal entries from her therapy sessions while dealing with PTSD and who on earth has any right to rate that? This was an interesting and horrifying read. My issues were the disjointed flow and the Bible verses taken out of context...but again it was (from my understanding) excerpts from her journal. Her life story is amazing and I might read her other books sometime. And I will say that it has inspired me to read more on the subject matter. Awhile ago I bought a bunch of cheap or free ebooks, and promptly stopped using my Kindle for a few weeks because I kept forgetting to charge it. Additionally I don't have wireless at work or at home, so I have to make a conscious effort to find a signal in order to download new books, which never happened in the month of January. So, between library books, I finally charged this thing, forgot about it for another few weeks, and then, desperate for something to read on the subway, I looked down and found that all of these weird new books had magically materialized on the reader without my having actively synced and downloaded them. Anyway, this is a painful, short recitation of the events of 9/11 from a woman who escaped from the 36th floor of Tower One. The author states that she has PTSD, and this is clearly part of a healing exercise and meant to be cathartic. I really enjoy reading memoirs as short, free/cheap, usually self-published Kindle/Nook ebooks, since in one sense they benefit from their direct-from-the-writer immediacy. That said, the editor in you will probably want to reach through the screen and physically move around the words, strike out purple prose, and ask the writer to elaborate on certain things, particularly her own background (who's this daughter she mentions in one paragraph? Can she provide a more fluid segue between recollections of her mother with the 9/11 narrative?). I enjoyed the use of Bible passages throughout the text (despite not being religious), although I understood the placement of some more than others. And I would have liked, again, more of an articulation of the author's faith, since this book seems to want to be about how faith influenced Leslie's actions on 9/11 and afterward. I get that this is a condensation of a longer book, but I think it would function more effectively as a narrative if certain elements were resolved within this short framework.
What do You think about Escape From The World Trade Center (2011)?
I enjoyed the book. I felt it had too many inserts from the bible but besides that I enjoyed it.
—blancedubois
It was horrible to read an account of a someone that lived through it first hand!
—angie
