This is Our Story.

• Author: Goldfarb, Brooke Deratany

This Is Our Story By Wendi Adelson

Wendi Adelson wants you to know the human slave trade still exists today. She wants you to know there are women all over the world who do not possess control and freedom over their lives or their bodies. She wants you to know if you are a person who can afford the time and money to get an education, you should consider going to law school and becoming, as she puts it, "an advocate for those whose voices have been taken from them."

What I like most about this novel is the characters are so alive they practically walk right off the page. They are not romanticized, flawless, simple dupes, but complex, thinking, erring human beings.

Perhaps Adelson is able to make her characters seem so real because they are composites of actual people with whom she has spent countless hours. I submit, however, that the true reason Adelson is able to bring these characters to life is because of the clarity and conviction with which she writes.

My only complaint is how Adelson's lawyer character tells her own story while constantly annotating her writing with footnotes. I find them distracting, yet I know she has done this...