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A Sliver Of Light: Three Americans Imprisoned In Iran (2014)

by Shane Bauer(Favorite Author)

3.69 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0547985649 (ISBN13: 9780547985640)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

review 1: I've read a number of negative reviews of this book which say many of the things that I felt (or did not feel) as I read this book. 1-I never came to care that much for Shane, Joshua and Sarah, I wanted to but it did not happen. And, I kinda felt bad for not feeling for them. 2-I've read many books people in captivity some through no fault of their own, some through stupidity some because they were wrong. The subject is typically engrossing, but not in this book. 3-I pretty much forced my self to finish the book.4-I was surprised by the total lack of photos in the book, it might have been more humanizing to have a few photos of places and people from the book. 5-I was excited to see this book at my library,having followed the story to an extent, but the book seemed to leav... moree me a little flat.
review 2: My main interest in reading this book was to understand the effect of captivity on a person. I've read a number of captivity narratives, but all of them concern just a single figure. This captivity account differs in that there are three captives -- close friends hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan who unknowingly cross the border into Iran and are captured as supposed spies. The relationship of the three young people affects in deep ways how they experience imprisonment.In some ways, the friendship of the three makes their horror bearable, but in other ways it creates barriers. Jealously arises between them when the two men, Shane and Josh, are held together in one cell and Sarah is held in solitary confinement. Josh feels the odd man out at times, because Shane and Sarah are a couple. Tensions arise between Shane and Josh as their imprisonment stretches out to two years, long after Sarah has been released. They discover the role Sarah played in holding their spirits up, and the strength they gained from holding her spirits up.I was riveted by the narrative until Sarah's release. After that, the book leans more heavily toward the heroic efforts of the families to gain the release of the two men. It is interesting in a peripheral sort of way, but not as gripping as the captivity portion of the book.In order to appreciate the story, I had to put aside my distaste for the political views of these three people. I don't question why they were there, as some do. Journalists (like Shane) routinely go into dicey areas in order to write stories that are authentic and convey information that cannot be gained in any other way. But they continually assert their opposition to the U.S. government and its policies. I realize some of it was to gain their captors' sympathy and their release, but even after their release, they snub government envoys like the FBI agent who comes to debrief them, which is standard procedure when any hostage or prisoner is released. It does get your hackles up. Did they prefer the government and politics of Iran?You might want to go on to read other captivity accounts such as Jere Van Dyk's Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban or David Rohde's A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides. less

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