Still Missing - Discussion 2

Welcome back to the second discussion of Still Missing by Chevy Stevens. This week we are covering Sessions 9-15. Fill free to jump on in, respond to each other in the comments and ask your own questions!

My stomach turned a lot turning this section. Especially when she plays nice with him trying to find out information and it just seems like he is able to twist everything back on her and make her feel crappy. He would win an award for making people feel like crap about themselves! I really could hardly even feel bad for him when he talked about his horrid childhood.

"Most people assume the guy had me at gunpoint the whole time, and I don't tell them different. How could I explain? How can I tell them that when he told me about places in the world like the Rock of Gilbraltor, where all those monkey's are, I found him interesting and articulate? And that sometimes when he rubbed my feet, they were so damn swollen, I liked it. Or that he could be so enthusastic and funny during book-reading time, or when he was cooking- he had this one stupid dance he did every time he fliipped an egg and he'd talk in different accents --I'd see the guy who first stopped at the open house. How could I ever tell anyone he made me laugh?" pg. 99

I think that this would be the hardest part of her 'after.' The trying to explain her survival to someone who had never been in that exact situation. No one KNOWS what they would do or would be capable of until they are there. It's easy to judge/second guess when you aren't there be raped/mind-farked and beat every day in a cabin in the moutains where you are locked in with no end in sight.

The whole time I was reading her labor part / right after with the baby I about had to skip it because I was so nervous/anxious with her every time he freaking got near the baby. And then after the poor baby was dead he tried to make it better by offering extra chocolate at dessert?? OMG. I would have probably gotten myself killed at that point.

1. Do you think The Freak needed Annie's help with the deer or that was part of his mind-farking?

2. Do you think The Freak's adopted mother was in a situation like Annie's where the man was abusing her or do you think she was just sexually liberal and a freak herself?

3. At some point during captivity, Annie begins to almost like The Freak. She goes to far as to admit that "sometimes he's kinda sweet." Although identifying with a captor is a known phenomenon—referred to as the "Stockholm Syndrome" in psychiatric parlance—how do those feelings develop in Annie? (from litlovers)

4. Chevy Stevens has written her book as a flashback, the present peering back into the past. We know at the outset, therefore, that Annie escapes her ordeal. Why might the author have structured her book in such a way? (from litlovers)

5. How did you react to the gruesome/sadistic scenes that were in this section?

Next week we will talk about Sessions 16 - 22!