Dit is niet het verhaal van Natascha zelf, maar van journalisten die vrij kort na haar ontsnapping met dit boek kwamen. Had liever haar eigen verhaal gelezen. ( )

Account of Austrian Natascha Kampusch, seized aged ten, and held in a cellar by the strange Wolfgang Priklopil for eight years. Hampered somewhat by the victim's refusal to be interviewed, the authors must necessarily rely on the words of her associates and press releases. The exact relationship that was forged with her kidnapper remains ambivalent: one thinks, though, of the many adult abuse victims who continue to retain feelings for their abuser, to realise that the eight years in which Priklopil was her sole link to the outide world would necessarily result in some kind of bond.
The authors question her family life (divorced parents; slightly errant mother, with a host of lovers...; father, drinking at the kidnappers's preferred pub. Did they know each other?) and comments on the strong, controlling personality of the girl, which enabled her to survive, to manipulate Priklopil into doing things her way...
When Natascha - finally- got away, Priklopil threw himself under a train. Much will never be known. Very interesting. ( )

Okay I did not know much at all about this story. Only that the victim is accused of loving to be the centre of attention in the media.
Did not know what happened, only that she was abducted.
Well this book did tell me a little bit. How she was kidnapped, how long she was there, but I find this all so weird.
Her behavior so crazy. I decided to search the Internet get to understand her, and afterwards I think the writers did explain her pretty good.
So weird, why did she lie about some stuff? Why did she not want to be with her parents after she finally had regained her parents. She seems to be a [b:control freak|665738|Control Freak|Christa Faust|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176923519s/665738.jpg|3254] and surrounds herself with people who oblige her every wish. Interesting book but this was all the authors could do because Natascha does not want to say anything negative about her abductor. it seems she cares more about the mother of her kidnapper, someone she never met then her own parents.

I finished reading this last night Saturday May 24-2008
7.5



( )

This review is going to be very short because it just didn't do anything for me. I love reading storys about kidnappings and crimes and hearing survivors storys. This story wasn't told from the victim Natascha's perspective and instead told from two journalists perspectives, which made it feel very cheap in the respect that I feel like a lot of the aspects of the story were made off assumptions and here-say instead of factual information.

Because there were two differenet authors I felt like a lot of information was repeated and irrelavant at that. I feel like the story would have been better if told from her perspective or at least with one authors voice versis two.

This book just didn't kept my attention and was very mundane unfortantally.. ( )

As if carefully plotted by a master storyteller, picture the scene: its early morning and an innocent young girl is making her way to school. Maybe her backpack is slipping from the weight of her schoolbooks as she heads unenthusiastically towards her destination. She’s already focused on her day ahead and only momentarily distracted by the sight of an indistinct white van with a single occupant up ahead. It is close to the entrance of her school so she ignores that nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach, which urges her to cross the street, and carries on with her original path, straight into the arms of her abductor.

Regrettably, this chilling storyline did not develop from the vivid imagination of a great writer, but is all too true and was systematically carried out by a modern day monster. “Girl in the Cellar” is the detailed account of the incomprehensible case of Natascha Kampusch. The ten-year-old girl who was stolen from the streets as she made her way to school in March of 1998.

Not your typical true crime novel, “Girl in the Cellar” chronicles the myriad of missteps made by authorities during the almost decade long search for Natascha. If this horrifying situation had been a piece of fiction, the errors of judgment and sloppy police work would be almost comical. Only this wasn’t fiction and the mistakes had very real consequences as Natascha spent her formative years locked in a one room dungeon.

After the abduction, the natural course of life began to take hold and the worldwide media frenzy slowly died down on this subject. Only a few held the slim hope of Natascha’s safe return while others prepared for a different form of closure. No one could foresee what was to happen on August 23, 2006 when a waif of a woman, skin and hair dull from lack of sunlight and nutrients arrived at the police station stating that she was indeed eighteen-year-old Natascha Kampusch.

Though Hall and Leidig were unable to meet with Natascha face to face, this astonishing account is filled with intimate interviews with her family, authorities and those who had contact with the very real monster, Wolfgang Priklopil. While he took the coward’s way out—committing suicide upon her escape—questions to this day remain unanswered as Natasha, now quick tempered and with an understandably stunted maturity level, refuses to discuss many aspects of their relationship. As readers slide through the pages, Hall and Leidig successfully manage to return Natasha to her rightful position of innocent victim.

Reviewed by Suspense Magazine
www.suspensemagazine.com ( )