🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸 out of 5 🌸s
#TheRealLolita by #SarahWeinman
This book grabs you from the first page and refuses to let go. You are not allowed to look away, no matter how uncomfortable you may be.
The story of Florence “Sally” Horner was the unacknowledged source material for much of “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov. She was a very real little girl who was kidnapped by Frank LaSalle and forced to accompany him on an almost two year road trip across America. All the while, this child was brutalized by LaSalle, who would later confess to his crime in open court.
Sally Horner died tragically two years after her rescue, in a car crash, never able to live a normal life.
The book convincingly tracks the similarities between Sally’s real life horrors, and the fictionalized ones of Lolita. Nabokov even mentions Sally in his novel.
I was left wishing desperately that the book had had nothing whatsoever to do with “Lolita”. I wanted Sally to have her own voice apart from Nabokov’s depraved imaginings. Nonetheless, I loved this book and I recommend it highly.
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