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Title details for I Cried to Dream Again by Sara Kruzan - Wait list

I Cried to Dream Again

Trafficking, Murder, and Deliverance — A Memoir

by Sara Kruzan
Cori Thomas
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There is perhaps no crime more disturbing than the abuse of a child—and no court cases as upsetting as those in which juveniles who have faced abuse are tried for fighting back. In this gripping memoir Sara Kruzan, a survivor of childhood abuse and sex trafficking, tells the honest, disturbing, and ultimately empowering story of her journey from abuse to incarceration without parole for killing her abuser to finally gaining her liberation.
"As someone who has worked with trafficking survivors in the developing world, I am struck by how vividly Kruzan’s memoir shows us how easily these same atrocities take place, barely noticed, beneath the sophisticated veneer of life in the U.S. A brilliant and illuminating read."—Leymah Gbowee, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and author of Mighty Be Our Powers

Sara is currently an advocate for the rights of incarcerated women and children, and the inspiration behind Sara’s Law, a bill currently in the House of Representative seeking to protect children of abuse from facing life sentences.

"I was eleven when I first met GG. I realized later that he had to have been aware of the chaos that was my life because he played me perfectly. I was walking home after school ... I heard a red Mustang purring like a huge lion behind me as I turned onto my block. When it caught up with me, a man leaned out of the window and motioned for me to come closer. 'Hey, excuse me,' he said. I approached the window and politely and cheerfully replied, ‘Yes?’ He said, 'I’ve been noticing you a lot, and I just want to talk to you. I’m gonna go get some ice cream and go to the park. I would love for you to come and join me. We won’t be gone long. Is that okay with you?' Ice cream! I found his offer irresistible. GG leaned over and opened the passenger door, 'What’s your name? People call me GG.' 'Sara,' I said shyly.'"—from I Cried to Dream Again

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 10, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593558355
      • File size: 197900 KB
      • Duration: 06:52:17

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      Starred review from September 1, 2022

      Narrator January LaVoy becomes activist/sex traffic survivor Kruzan in this memoir of her extraordinary life (cowritten with playwright Cori Thomas). Raised in a dysfunctional home by an abusive mother in a community of drug abuse, gangs, and poverty, Kruzan had aspired to break the cycle and become a doctor. Instead, she was trapped by her neediness for affection from a man she met and trusted at age 11, as he groomed her for a life in the sex industry. At age 16, she shot him as he was about to rape her, was found guilty of murder, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. LaVoy's magnificent performance captures Kruzan's depression, desperation, and raw emotion during attempts to escape from home and failed suicides and the horror Kruzan felt when sexual abuse and rapes were thrust on her. Just as palpable is the realization of her loss of na�vet� when turned over to the prison system, with her confidence restored when the court reduced her sentence to 25-50 years with parole (in July 2022, California governor Gavin Newsome pardoned Kruzan). VERDICT This empowering, candid memoir is a powerful call to eliminate the sentence of life without parole for teenagers.--Stephanie Bange

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 14, 2022
      Activist Kruzan debuts with a stirring account of her harrowing experience as a victim of child sex trafficking. Raised in a low-income neighborhood with an abusive mother, Kruzan was particularly vulnerable when in the late 1980s, at age 11, she met a man named GG while walking home from school. “It was his gentleness... that captured me,” she writes. As she recounts in unflinching scenes, GG began to groom her for the sex trade, molesting her for months before lending her to his “clients.” The abuse went on for years until 16-year-old Kruzan shot and killed GG—an act of self-defense that led to her sentence, as a juvenile, to life without parole by a judge who refused to hear her story. After nearly 20 years in prison, Kruzan was released thanks to activists who tirelessly campaigned for her freedom, and from then on devoted her life to fighting for sex trafficking victims, most notably helping pass a law that protects them from “disproportionate sentencing as a result of crimes against our abusers.” Writing with power and clarity, she asserts “the most important requirement for preventing the sexual exploitation of... victims of trafficking is empathy.” Her testimony rings out as a searing critique of a broken criminal justice system and a galvanizing call to end the violence it permits.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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