The Kindness of Strangers

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Katrina Kittle writes about such a painful topic realistically and with sensitivity. There are many statistics in the book but they do not interfere with the storyline. The Kindness of Strangers is a compelling novel of survival and the healing power of love. I honestly don't know how to rate this book because I loved it so much yet disturbed all at the same time. I found myself not being able to put the book down but probably because I wanted to know what was going to happen to each of them. Of course it broke my heart as we know this really does exist every day. I think it was a GREAT approach for the author to show- yes, good things can come out of horrible situations. For anyone who has ever followed the news, you know that the most horrible crimes are often committed by the seemingly most unlikely people. Friends and neighbors are almost always heard to say after the truth is discovered that they "had no idea" and "it can't be true, they're such nice people". It was good to read a book that takes this real-life rule to heart. The 'bad guys' here aren't the creepy or strange people that everyone steers clear of. Rather, they're seemingly normal family people who volunteer at school events, participate in their community, and are seemingly good friends or acquaintances to many people, all of whom have no idea of the truth until the police get involved. This book will haunt you, educate you, and hopefully let you understand the deeper issues a bit better. Yes, there are times that you want to grab one of the characters and slap them out of their denial, until you think about how you would feel in their position. For better or worse, the emotions and reactions in this book are true to real life, as unfortunate as that can sometimes be. It is harder to define what the action is about, and she often admits defeat. Of Bosnia, she says: 'It was as if someone had decided to play a lethal board game and failed to produce a set of rules. However, break an invisible rule, and you got blown off the board.' Libya 'wasn't like a country, it was a kind of mad boarding-school where the rules were unknown but the punishments fearful'.

This isn't an autobiography but more a memoir. Adie shows us round her career, but we walk behind her, not beside her. Adie the journalist is revealed in wonderful detail. Kate the woman is as much a stranger when you've finished the book as when you started. It's an extended 'From our Own Correspondent', really, the Correspondent being Kate Adie, and she's reporting on the Japes that she experienced in her rather exciting and privileged life.

I wish I read this when it was released, not ten years later. Ten years ago I didn't think I would live to see this day. Ten years ago I was so engrossed in pain I didn't believe in futures. So in a way I am glad I'm reading this a decade later, seeing how far I have come. Despite how painful this book is, it is a reminder that things DO get better. And that is worth all the marbles to me.

This was a tough book for me. Child abuse and animal abuse are subjects I avoid. Books such as these prey on my mind. I have difficulty processing how the innocents of our world are targets for such madness. The book was well done, giving many character's perspective on the crisis. And while the subject was so serious, there were moments of relief written in. These characters & this story will stay with me forever, because after all, you can never forget those who have hurt you. It’s very much a typical American style narrative - with the locals portrayed as quite some weirdos, or bizarre people. No offence to any Americans though. It’s just that I’ve observed Europeans to not be so self-centered and they don’t talk about locals like they’re those weird strangers. The arrogance is again, not only awful, but he doesn’t even seem to recognize that he really almost killed his girlfriend in multiple ways.The stories are as varies as the people who have written them; one writer tries to outrun a blizzard on her bicycle, an out of work forestry worker who would join Ed Stafford on the longest walk of his life and two men who wanted to do the Lands End to John O Groats route starting only in their underwear and who were utterly reliant on the generosity of strangers to clothe and feed them. I really love short stories, and I have read short story anthologies in the past, but I struggled a little with this one because the stories were so short. Any time I start a story, it takes a while to wrap my mind around the setting, the characters and the voice. With this book, by the time I settled into the story, it ended, and I was sometimes loath to start the next one because of the work it would take to mentally get into the new setting, character and voice. This is a book written by solo wanderlusters for solo wanderlusters, an assemblage of journals that showcase why kindness is a universal language that transcends countries, cultures, language and race; it is an ode to travelers who have had firsthand witness to unrequited kindness that challenges xenophobic sentiments and unfair stereotypes towards selected nations. At the same time, this book is also dedicated to people who doubt the excitement and adventure that solo traveling brings, making them intrigued to go out there and start exploring the world for themselves. It's a book that shows how there is still so much about the human heart that people don't fathom, and learning how to be humble in accepting just how little we know about people in foreign lands, and thereby restoring some faith in humanity. Nate convinces Sarah to become Jordan's foster mother with both parents in jail, since she's always taught her boys to reach out to others in need. We just didn't have any idea how needy Jordan is. I literally groaned reading this, knowing it is fiction, but for some children this is their life.