Somehow Melissa Fung manages to take her wildly scary and intense experience in captivity and turn it into a boring read. I only finished it because 1. I feel that I have to finish what I start and 2. I was hoping that at some point I would be drawn into her experience. I was never captivated unfortunately. She definitely had a wild experience, mind-boggling experience but she just couldn't bring it to life. And then there are her religious views washing over every page that really killed it.

Mellissa Fung, thirty-five-years –old, has been a long time journalist for CBC’s ‘THE NATIONAL’ in Canada. As she was reporting on the effects of war in Afghanistan, she was leaving a refugee camp outside Kabul when she was grabbed by armed men saying they were Taliban. After stabbing her, stuffing her into the back of a car, she was driven into the desert and then forced to walk through mountains, bleeding profusely. Finally her kidnappers stopped and forced her into a hole in the ground where she lived for the next “28” days! The hole was hardly big enough to stand up or lie down in and she had her serious injuries to contend with as well. The only thing she had to eat was cookies and juice. Mellissa, a brave young woman felt her best bet was to keep her captors engaged in some sort of dialogue thinking they’d come to know her better and take pity on her. She felt by endearing herself to them, they would come to think of her as a good friend, or even family as one of her captors eventually regarded her as “sister”. She asked how to pronounce each of their names properly, asked if they had families, taught them English words, and finally convinced them to promise her that they wouldn’t shoot her! This was an amazing memoir of one woman’s courage, strength, and resilience to remain calm during a gruelling 28 day captivity. The writing is both compelling and deeply moving. I couldn’t put it down until I’d turned the last page.