After We Were Stolen

Nineteen-year-old, Avery and her sixteen-year-old brother, Cole are the survivors when their family’s remote compound burned to the ground. They had been living there while preparing for the end. Their father was preparing them for survival using harsh treatment, control, threats, abuse, and fear.

Although Avery and Cole have been groomed for “survival” by their father, they are not prepared to survive once they flee from the flames. When they are arrested for shoplifting, the revelations come in – they had both been kidnapped fifteen years earlier! Avery is left alone after Cole’s family comes to take him ‘home’.

What does it really mean to survive? What makes a family?

This book explores trauma and cults and how they control. Cults are fascinating to me as was this story. I appreciated how the Author explored what happens when one leaves/escapes a cult. What happens when confronted with the truth. Cole and Avery were both very young and raised by “father” and this was all that they knew. Their reactions to learning the truth, felt authentic and realistic. I felt for both and their plight both while on the compound and after.

This book was not an easy read. There are things in the book which are upsetting. But there is also hope for the two characters.

This was a very well thought out and executed book. I listened to the audiobook and thought the narrator did a very good job.

Well written and thought provoking.

#AfterWeWereStolen #NetGalley.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.