Michelle                                                                           Expos. Writ. – Ms.Gokturk

Due date: Oct.27^th 2003                                            Outside Reading Book Review

 

Book Review – Stolen Lives

 

Want to get away from the everyday, mundane scenery of life? The autobiography of Malika Oufkir in her book, Stolen Lives, gives an exquisite account of an out-of-the-ordinary, horrific, and yet, fascinating experience she had. The powerful language and description that the author uses lures the reader into her world, so that the reader experiences with her – and doesn’t just give a coup d’oeil at what’s happening from the sidelines.

 

Malika Oufkir, the daughter of General Oufkir, the king’s trusted general whose position and power is rising, is adopted by the King of Morocco at the age of five as a playmate for his beloved daughter. She grows up surrounded by all the lavishness and comforts granted a royal family member. Although she comes to enjoy the various aspects of this grandiose life style at the Palace, she is not thoroughly content, especially because of the fact that she was forcefully torn away from her real family. Trouble starts brewing when her father’s discontentment towards the second King grows, until finally, there is no turning back when he stages the coup d’état. Her father is executed and her family has lost the favor of the King and are exiled into what seems to be a lifetime in jail..

 

“From the living room come the strains of mambo and cha-cha music, the percussion and guitars punctuated by the arrival of the guests. Laughter and conversation fill the rooms, wafting up to the bedroom” (11). The author writes in this style, using a technique that is almost too delicious in describing what her senses perceive. By referring to the sound as “wafting up to the bedroom,” it’s as if the laughter and conversation were so appealing to her as does the scent of a freshly baked cake to a hungry child.  

 

Also, the author goes into such vivid details, both interest-provoking and gruesome, and causes the reader smile and grimace. “She lay down on her bed and made herself as comfortable as possible. Sitting opposite her, I started to slash her wrists. I drove the point in as hard as I could, sobbing as I lacerated her flesh” (180). At this point in the story, the author and her family are in the worst of the jails, and have given up everything. They are trying to kill each other, since death at that time would have been only too kind of an escape.

 

This exquisitely embroidered true tale is one that everyone should read at least once. And although it is considerably long and time consuming, this book is a page turner that will keep the reader mesmerized in the author’s world. However, it would only be recommended to audiences of fifteen and higher, as this tale’s content includes some details that the younger ones deserve to be spared of.