Book picks similar to
Hell Minus One by Anne A. Johnson Davis
non-fiction
biography
true-crime
nonfiction
The Slave Across the Street: The True Story of How an American Teen Survived the World of Human Trafficking
Theresa L. Flores - 2007
The memoir of a woman, tricked and trapped into sexual slavery as a young teenager.
INSIDE (One Man's Experience of Prison) A True Story
John Hoskison - 1998
This work recounts his time inside one of Britain's toughest prisons following the incident: the squalor, violence, noise, stench, brutality, drugs and danger.
Counterfeit Dreams
Jefferson Hawkins - 2010
It is an image that Jefferson Hawkins helped to craft in his 35 years as a top marketing executive for the Church of Scientology. Yet behind that façade is a hidden world of physical and mental abuse, sleep deprivation, labor camps, family disconnection and human rights abuses. It is a nightmare world that is carefully hidden from public view. Counterfeit Dreams is a must-read for anyone who wants to know the truth about today’s most controversial cult.
Me and My Mate Jeffrey: A story of big dreams, tough realities and facing my demons head on
Niall Breslin - 2015
It is also the story of a road to reconciliation with brokenness - beginning after a massive panic attack before a live TV appearance in 2012 - leading to brighter horizons.Me and My Mate Jeffrey is an essential book for anyone who knows what it is to feel alone, and who doesn't know how to ask for help - or anyone who wants to better understand that journey.
The Silent Twins
Marjorie Wallace - 1986
As they grew up, love, hate, and genius united to push them to the extreme margins of society and, following a five-week spree of vandalism and arson, the silent twins were sentenced to a grueling twelve-year detention in Broadmoor.Award-winning investigative journalist Marjorie Wallace delves into the twins' silent world, revealing their genius, alienation, and the mystic bond by which the extremes of good and evil ended in possession and death.
Leaving Cloud 9: The True Story of a Life Resurrected from the Ashes of Poverty, Trauma, and Mental Illness
Ericka Andersen - 2018
Rick battled depression, anxiety, and PTSD as the chaos, neglect, and unpredictability of his childhood seemed to doom him to follow in his mother's footsteps.Well into adulthood, Rick stumbled through unemployment and divorce, using drugs and alcohol to numb the pain until he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Miraculously, though, he overcame the odds and today is a happy husband and father. How did this happen? Rick's answer is this: "It was the Lord."A message of hope to those who are drowning from an undeserved childhood, Leaving Cloud 9 speaks to millions who grew up poor, feeling ignored and hopeless, and who need the healing power of God. This indelibly American story conveys the steadfast love of Jesus and his power to deliver us from the most devastating of pasts.
Her
Christa Parravani - 2013
Raised up from poverty by a determined single mother, the gifted and beautiful twins were able to create a private haven of splendor and merriment between themselves and then earn their way to a prestigious college and to careers as artists (a photographer and a writer, respectively) and to young marriages. But, haunted by childhood experiences with father figures and further damaged by being raped as a young adult, Cara veered off the path to robust work and life and in to depression, drugs and a shocking early death.A few years after Cara was gone, Christa read that when an identical twin dies, regardless of the cause, 50 percent of the time the surviving twin dies within two years; and this shocking statistic rang true to her. "Flip a coin," she thought," those were my chances of survival." First, Christa fought to stop her sister's downward spiral; suddenly, she was struggling to keep herself alive.Beautifully written, mesmerizingly rich and true, Christa Parravani's account of being left, one half of a whole, and of her desperate, ultimately triumphant struggle for survival is informative, heart-wrenching and unforgettably beautiful.Wall Street Journal, "Favorite Books of the Year 2013"Cosmopolitan, "Best Books of the Year for Women"Library Journal, "Best Books of 2013"Salon, "Best Books of 2013"
The Choice: Embrace the Possible
Edith Eger - 2017
Separated from her parents on arrival, she endures unimaginable experiences, including being made to dance for the infamous Josef Mengele. When the camp is finally liberated, she is pulled from a pile of bodies, barely alive.The horrors of the Holocaust didn’t break Edith. In fact, they helped her learn to live again with a life-affirming strength and a truly remarkable resilience. The Choice is her unforgettable story.
An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir
Ariel Leve - 2015
There would be uncontrolled, impulsive rages followed with denial, disavowed responsibility, and then extreme outpourings of affection. How does a child learn to feel safe in this topsy-turvy world of conditional love?Leve captures the chaos and lasting impact of a child’s life under siege and explores how the coping mechanisms she developed to survive later incapacitated her as an adult. There were material comforts, but no emotional safety, except for summer visits to her father’s home in South East Asia—an escape that was terminated after he attempted to gain custody. Following the death of a loving caretaker, a succession of replacements raised Leve—relationships which resulted in intense attachment and loss. It was not until decades later, when Leve moved to other side of the world, that she could begin to emancipate herself from the past. In a relationship with a man who has children, caring for them yields clarity of what was missing.In telling her haunting story, Leve seeks to understand the effects of chronic psychological maltreatment on a child’s developing brain, and to discover how to build a life for herself that she never dreamed possible: An unabbreviated life.
Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder
Rachel Reiland - 2002
A mother, wife, and working professional, Reiland was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder at the age of 29—a diagnosis that finally explained her explosive anger, manipulative behaviors, and self-destructive episodes including bouts of anorexia, substance abuse, and promiscuity. A truly riveting read with a hopeful message.
The Dark Side of Innocence: Growing Up Bipolar
Terri Cheney - 2011
But when I was seven, the odds felt insurmountable.As a young girl, Terri Cheney's life looked perfect. Her family lived in a lovely house in a tranquil Los Angeles suburb where the geraniums never once failed to bloom. She was pretty and smart, an academic superstar and popular cheerleader whose father doted on her. But starting with her first suicide attempt at age seven, it was clear that her inner world was anything but perfect. "There's something wrong with her," her mother would whisper, her voice quivering on the edge of despair. And indeed there was, although no one had a name for it yet. Hostage to her roller-coaster moods, Terri veered from easy A-pluses to total paralysis, from bouts of obsessive hypersexuality to episodes of alcoholic abandon that nearly cost her her life. Throughout Terri's chaotic early years, nothing was certain from day to day except this: whatever was so deeply wrong with her must be kept a secret. Thirty years later, Terri wrote Manic, a harrowing memoir that revealed her adult struggle with bipolar disorder. It became an instant "New York Times" bestseller and received passionate critical acclaim. But it didn't tell the whole story. The mystery of Terri's childhood remained untouched-- too troubling, too painful to fathom. The Dark Side of Innocence explores those tumultuous formative years, finally shattering Terri's well-guarded secret." With vivid intensity, it blends a pitch-perfect childlike voice with keen adult observation. The Dark Side of Innocence provides a heart-rending, groundbreaking insider's look into the fascinating and frightening world of childhood bipolar disorder, an illness that affects a staggering one million children. This poignant and compelling story of Terri's journey from disaster and despair to hope and survival will serve as an informative and eye-opening tale for those who would trust a flawless facade.
Crime Seen: Stories from Behind the Yellow Tape, From Patrol Cop to Profiler
Kate Lines - 2015
How does a farm girl from Ennismore enter a male-dominated field and become a top criminal profiler and groundbreaking leader? For Kate Lines, it started humbly, patrolling highways. She learned quickly that the best way to thrive was to keep calm, carry on and never lose her sense of humour. In what would be the first of many dramatic turns in her career, Kate traded in her uniform for a tight miniskirt and a leather jacket, becoming one of the OPP's first female undercover officers. In 1990 came the opportunity of a lifetime: to be chosen as the 2nd-ever Canadian in an elite program at Quantico, Virginia in what was then the emerging field of criminal profiling. After 10 months of an intensive education in the intricacies of violent crime, Kate's new skills made her much in demand back home. Over the years she was involved in a number of high-profile cases, such as the abduction and murder of Kristen French and of Tori Stafford and the disappearance of Michael Dunahee. Kate was an early proponent of ViCLAS--the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System, and when she took charge of the new and massive Behavioural Sciences division in Orillia, she took over ViCLAS and turned the department into a hub of innovation. Kate was awarded a Governor General's medal for being in the top 1/10th of 1% of the members of police forces that year. The following year the Canadian Police Leadership Foundation named her Police Leader of the Year. Always taking care not to aggrandize in any way the criminals whose names we may know all too well, Kate feels it's much more important to focus on the courage of victims and their families. Kate is an unsung, groundbreaking Canadian woman, one of a kind in this country, with a unique, inspiring and fascinating story to share.
I Will Find You: Solving Killer Cases from My Life Fighting Crime
Joe Kenda - 2017
Joe Kenda, star of Homicide Hunter, shares his deepest, darkest, and never before revealed case files from his 19 years as a homicide detective.Are you horrified yet fascinated by abhorrent murders? Do you crave to know the gory details of these crimes, and do you seek comfort in the solving of the most gruesome? In I WILL FIND YOU, the star of Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda shares his deepest, darkest, and never-before-revealed case files from his two decades as a homicide detective and reminds us that crimes like these are very real and can happen even in our own backyards. Gruesome, macabre, and complex cases. Joe Kenda investigated 387 murder cases during his 23 years with the Colorado Springs Police Department and solved almost all of them. And he is ready to detail the cases that are too gruesome to air on television, cases that still haunt him, and the few cases where the killer got away. These cases are horrifyingly real, and the detail is so mesmerizing you won't be able to look away. The tales in I WILL FIND YOU will shock you like the best horror stories-divulging insights into the actions, motivations, and proclivities of nature's most dangerous species. Don't mind the blood.
All of Me
Kim Noble - 2011
She was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which causes unbearable pain.Now her body plays host to more than 20 different personalities, or 'alters'. There are women and men, adults and children; there is a scared little boy who speaks only Latin, an elective mute, a gay man and an anorexic teenager.All Of Me tells of Kim’s terrifying battles to understand her own mind, of her desperate struggle against all odds to win back her 13-year-old daughter, and of her courage in trying to make sense of her life. It is by turns shocking, inspiring, sometimes funny, and deeply moving.
Because We Are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought
Lily Bailey - 2016
She had killed someone with a thought, spread untold disease, and ogled the bodies of other children. Only by performing an exhausting series of secret routines could she make up for what she’d done. But no matter how intricate or repetitive, no act of penance was ever enough.Beautifully written and astonishingly intimate, Because We Are Bad recounts a childhood consumed by obsessive compulsive disorder. As a child, Bailey created a second personality inside herself—"I" became "we"—to help manifest compulsions that drove every minute of every day of her young life. Now she writes about the forces beneath her skin, and how they ordered, organized, and urged her forward. Lily charts her journey, from checking on her younger sister dozens of times a night, to "normalizing" herself at school among new friends as she grew older, and finally to her young adult years, learning—indeed, breaking through—to make a way for herself in a big, wide world that refuses to stay in check.Charming and raw, harrowing and redemptive, Because We Are Bad is an illuminating and uplifting look into the mind and soul of an extraordinary young woman, and a startling portrait of OCD that allows us to see and understand this condition as never before.