Name: A House in the Sky
ISBN: 9781594137471

Amanda Lindhout

Sara Corbett

Documents the author's backpacking tours through some of the world's most dangerous and war-ridden regions, describing her work as a fledgling television reporter, her brutal 15-month incarceration in Somalia and her founding of a non-profit organization to promote aid, development and education. (biography & autobiography).

A Memoir

A House in the Sky

The dramatic and redemptive memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world’s most beautiful and remote places, its most imperiled and perilous countries, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity—an exquisitely written story of courage, resilience, and grace As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress in Calgary, Alberta, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia—“the most dangerous place on earth.” On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road. Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda converts to Islam as a survival tactic, receives “wife lessons” from one of her captors, and risks a daring escape. Moved between a series of abandoned houses in the desert, she survives on memory—every lush detail of the world she experienced in her life before captivity—and on strategy, fortitude, and hope. When she is most desperate, she visits a house in the sky, high above the woman kept in chains, in the dark, being tortured. Vivid and suspenseful, as artfully written as the finest novel, A House in the Sky is the searingly intimate story of an intrepid young woman and her search for compassion in the face of unimaginable adversity.

Colleen

** spoiler alert **
           This is a tough one to rate and review. 

This book was being promoted at my library as a bookclub book. It looked interesting, but I was a little hesitant both because of the dark subject matter and the fact that it is a co-written memoir. I went ahead and read it though, and I am very glad I did. But I still have mixed feelings about the book.

The beginning is very slow. It spends a lot of time talking about Lindhout's childhood. While some of the information tied in later and set up her character and motivations, much of it seems extraneous. Did we really need to know the color of the dumpster outside her home or what the local amusement park was like?

From there, it moves onto Lindhout's teenage years when she becomes a sporadic cocktail waitress who saves up her money a few months at a time then disappears to various far away destinations. The casual, almost flippant, way that she talks about making over $1,000 (in U.S. dollars apparently!) per night serving drinks was irritating. While I was interested in the story, I really didn't bond with Lindhout. Particularly in the beginning, she comes across as shallow, narcissistic, immature, and irresponsible. Once she started traveling , it became more interesting simply because I like reading travelogs. But I couldn't suppress the nagging wonder of when the book was going to get to the meat of the story. It isn't until 1/3 of the way through that she even arrives in Somalia. While many of the things in the first 1/3 did tie in later, I still felt that section could have been significantly shorter and still have gotten the point across. 

If you read the book description or the introduction, then it is not a surprise when she is kidnapped. It was very frustrating to watch someone being so foolish, headstrong, and indomitable. I love to travel. I love seeing a woman be independent. But Lindhout's motivations for traveling and for ignoring all the warnings were flimsy at best. She is a self-appointed journalist whom decides to traipse off to "the most dangerous place on Earth" to make a name for herself and "find her hurricane." It comes as no surprise then when she makes it a whopping three days before being kidnapped and held for ransom.

Let me be clear that despite her foolhardiness, no one deserves to go through what she endured. Fifteen months of confinement, starvation, rape, and torture. Regardless of how you got into the situation, anyone who not only survives that but comes out as a functioning member of society deserves respect. 

But I still feel that this account should be read with a grain of salt. While the book is successful in presenting the story very well, it is still a memoir and thus the events are as seen as Lindhout interpreted them. Clearly, Sara Corbett is the one writing this book. I definitely feel that Lindhout's name was left on the cover so that it could still be labeled as a memoir - a true event through one person's view - and not subject to as much conjecture about bias. It was a calculated move and I suppose a smart one. The book still turned out very well. While I had no problem walking away from the beginning, once I got towards the end I couldn't put it down. Even though she clearly goes home at the end, I wanted to find out when and how.

Corbett does a very good job of winding the tale. Despite the horrors that Lindhout went through, the book does not belittle Somalia or Islamism. She maintains a very open and forgiving (albeit very Stockholm Syndrom-like at times) attitude towards her kidnappers. But the compassion and forgiveness she shows is very heartwarming. It is made more realistic by the epilogue where she admits that it is a process and an ongoing battle. I think this is a good book for anyone studying traumatic events and how they affect people. 

I was sometimes a little confounded by Lindhout. The shallow twit of the beginning of the story, miraculously transforms into a cool-headed, positive powerhouse the moment Amanda and Nigel are kidnapped. I recognize that no one knows how they will react in a crisis until it arrives. But it felt like she may have polished that part up to make herself look better. Lindhout's calm clashed terribly with Nigel's apparent fall. Even Corbett couldn't keep the bitterness from peeking through as she described Nigel being a panicky, cowardly, crying mess. Then a page later she would be describing how much she loved him and how they were in it together no matter what. While it makes sense that Lindhout's thoughts and emotions toward Nigel and her captors would run the gambit over those fifteen months, it was a very confusing relationship. There was clearly a lot of underlying tension between Amanda and Nigel and between their families. Since Nigel's account of this incident was published two years before Amanda, I wonder what he said and if that motivated her to write her own account. I do want to read The Price of Life eventually, although it apparently focuses more on what the family went through than Nigel's actual account.

Overall, it was a good book. I felt very emotional reading it even though the end - when the real abuse starts - is told with a clinical detachment. It still drew me in. The descriptions are sparse, but you can clearly picture her surroundings and what she endured. For me the escape scene was the most intense part of the book. The part in the temple... WOW!

I do also want to mention that I thought the cover was very well chosen. As soon as saw the picture of the geometric design changing Escher-like into birds, I realized that this was symbolic. In Islam, you cannot draw any living thing so their artwork is almost all geometric designs. The transition of shapes into birds flying away seemed to represent not only escaping her fundamentalist captors but also flying free to her "house in the sky." When I read that Lindhout took the appearance of a small bird as the sign that stopped her from committing suicide, that symbolism became even stronger. Whomever chose that cover was quite clever!

Elizabeth Morris

I thought this book was well-written, insightful and incredibly compelling. Amanda's experience in Somalia is terrifying, but it's essential that we know of her captivity. Her life is not something we can ignore, and I would argue that this book needs to be read by a large portion of my peers. Her memoir has holes, and understandably so, as some of the memories must be too hard to revisit. I'm looking forward to reading her companion, Nigel's, book to see the comparisons. It was hard to put down and I would recommend the book to anyone interested in the world.

Krystal Campbell 

I read this for Buzzwordathon 2021 and I am so grateful that this readathon encouraged me to pick it up. This gem of a book would have never crossed my path otherwise. 

The story telling, the atmosphere, the rawness! 

Thank you Amanda for sharing your story. 

I did find there were lulls like any non fiction and there were also points I found difficult to listen to (understandably) but I am a wiser and stronger person for listening to this story. I can recommend the audio

Melissa

Samantha Jackson

BREAKING NEWS: Amanda Lindhout’s lead kidnapper, Ali Omar Ader, has been caught. Amanda Lindhout wrote about her fifteen month abduction in Somalia in A House in the Sky. It is the New York Times bestselling memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world’s most remote places and then into captivity: “Exquisitely told…A young woman’s harrowing coming-of-age story and an extraordinary narrative of forgiveness and spiritual triumph” (The New York Times Book Review). As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself visiting its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia—“the most dangerous place on earth.” On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road. Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda survives on memory—every lush detail of the world she experienced in her life before captivity—and on strategy, fortitude, and hope. When she is most desperate, she visits a house in the sky, high above the woman kept in chains, in the dark. Vivid and suspenseful, as artfully written as the finest novel, A House in the Sky is “a searingly unsentimental account. Ultimately it is compassion—for her naïve younger self, for her kidnappers—that becomes the key to Lindhout’s survival” (O, The Oprah Magazine).

Ashlyn Temple

Jen Baron

Ainsley Jeffery

Elena Favret

Olivia

MacKenzie Hamon

"The spectacularly dramatic memoir of a woman whose curiosity about the world led her from rural Canada to imperiled and dangerous countries on every continent, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity in Somalia--a story of courage, resilience, and extraordinary grace.At the age of eighteen, Amanda Lindhout moved from her hardscrabble Alberta hometown to the big city--Calgary--and worked as a cocktail waitress, saving her tips so she could travel the globe. As a child, she escaped a violent household by paging through National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. Now she would see those places for real. She backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each experience, went on to travel solo across Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a TV reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Mogadishu, Somalia--"the most dangerous place on earth"--to report on the fighting there. On her fourth day in the country, she and her photojournalist companion were abducted. An astoundingly intimate and harrowing account of Lindhout's fifteen months as a captive, A House in the Sky illuminates the psychology, motivations, and desperate extremism of her young guards and the men in charge of them. She is kept in chains, nearly starved, and subjected to unthinkable abuse. She survives by imagining herself in a "house in the sky," looking down at the woman shackled below, and finding strength and hope in the power of her own mind. Lindhout's decision, upon her release, to counter the violence she endured by founding an organization to help the Somali people rebuild their country through education is a wrenching testament to the capacity of the human spirit and an astonishing portrait of the power of compassion and forgiveness"--

Jaimie Poettcker

Sloan MacDonald

Autumn Wolf

Faye Alhadeff

Stephanie Honour

Kelsey W

Bunnhi

The New York Times bestselling memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world’s most remote places and then into fifteen months of captivity: “Exquisitely told…A young woman’s harrowing coming-of-age story and an extraordinary narrative of forgiveness and spiritual triumph” (The New York Times Book Review). As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself visiting its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia—“the most dangerous place on earth.” On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road. Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda survives on memory—every lush detail of the world she experienced in her life before captivity—and on strategy, fortitude, and hope. When she is most desperate, she visits a house in the sky, high above the woman kept in chains, in the dark. Vivid and suspenseful, as artfully written as the finest novel, A House in the Sky is “a searingly unsentimental account. Ultimately it is compassion—for her naïve younger self, for her kidnappers—that becomes the key to Lindhout’s survival” (O, The Oprah Magazine).

A House in the Sky A Memoir

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