"Let's get one thing straight! My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I was kidnapped by a stranger at age eleven. For eighteen years I was kept in a backyard and not allowed to say my own name. What follows will be my personal story of how one fateful day in June of 1991 changed my life forever." (Introduction, page ix)

"I start to shiver. I am so cold. I try to stop the tears. I tell myself I must be brave. It feels like my life is not my own anymore. My whole body feels heavy and I just want to collapse. This cannot be real, I tell myself. It's only a dream." ("The Secret Backyard," page 19)

"I had to stay in the same place I'd just been raped in. I didn't know at the time that is what it was called: the word 'rape' was not in my...