If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation

If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation
by Janine Latus

If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation
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Book Summary Information

Author: Janine Latus
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2007-04-17
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Book Reviews of If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation

Book Review: Heartbreaking Must Read for Woman
Summary: 4 Stars

I was disappointed about the misleading title and description of this book. I felt that Janine Latus' story was compelling enough that it could have stood on its own without leading the reader to believe that the book was mostly about her sister's murder. It was knowing that the book was eventually going to cover her sister's story that built tension and kept me reading. I believe I would have taken the book in differently if I hadn't known that before reading. That being said, I believe that Latus is very courageous to share her story. I understand, after finishing the book, that she could not cover her sister's story because she was not there to know the details. She wove her life with what she could of her sister's and the comparison was stunning. Though Latus went one way and her sister another, they both could have ended up the same way. It was heartbreaking to see how much Latus' sister had gone through only to end up murdered by her boyfriend. Latus covered some very important beliefs, feelings, and errant thinking that women have when involved in domestic violence situations. We get an inside view of the thinking that kept her in her marriage for so long. Overall, I felt this was a very good book and something every woman should read. I found the afterword to be excellent and really showing Latus' purpose in writing this book. This surely was not an easy book to write, but clearly one that needed to be written.

Summary of If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation

In April 2002, Janine Latus's youngest sister, Amy, wrote a note and taped it to the inside of her desk drawer. Today Ron Ball and I are romantically involved, it read, but I fear I have placed myself at risk in a variety of ways. Based on his criminal past, writing this out just seems like the smart thing to do. If I am missing or dead this obviously has not protected me...

That same spring Janine Latus was struggling to leave her marriage -- a marriage to a handsome and successful man. A marriage others emulated. A marriage in which she felt she could do nothing right and everything wrong. A marriage in which she felt afraid, controlled, inadequate, and trapped.

Ten weeks later, Janine Latus had left her marriage. She was on a business trip to the East Coast, savoring her freedom, attending a work conference, when she received a call from her sister Jane asking if she'd heard from Amy. Immediately, Janine's blood ran cold. Amy was missing.

Helicopters went up and search dogs went out. Coworkers and neighbors and family members plastered missing posters with Amy's picture across the county. It took more than two weeks to find Amy's body, wrapped in a tarpaulin and buried at a building site. It took nearly two years before her killer, her former boyfriend Ron Ball, was sentenced for her murder.

Amy died in silent fear and pain. Haunted by this, Janine Latus turned her journalistic eye inward. How, she wondered, did two seemingly well-adjusted, successful women end up in strings of physically or emotionally abusive relationships with men? If I Am Missing or Dead is a heart-wrenching journey of discovery as Janine Latus traces the roots of her own -- and her sister's -- victimization with unflinching candor. This beautifully written memoir will move readers from the first to the last page. At once a confession, a call to break the cycle of abuse, and a deeply felt love letter to her baby sister, Amy Lynne Latus, If I Am Missing or Dead is an unforgettable read.

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