Speaking truths by dayna hester

1. Speaking Truths by Dayna Hester
Reviewed by Douglas R. Cobb
What would it be like to be abducted as a child, to be sexually
abused for years, to be conditioned through beatings and
threats to think of your abuser as your “father,” and that your
birth parents hated you and didn’t want you anymore? What
would you believe: the “truth” of your everyday existence, the
“truth” that your abductor wants you to believe, these “truths” that have defined
who you are for years; or, the actual truth that you were in reality kidnaped
away from loving parents who never stopped caring for you and loving you, and
that you’ve been brutalized by a monster in human form who has succeeded in
brainwashing you, convincing you that his lies are the truth? Speaking Truths is
a powerful, page-turning, thought-provoking book by the talented author
Dayna Hester about a teen who was abducted as a boy, was abused by his
captor, and who has been told lies for so long by his abductor that he has
trouble knowing what is the “truth” anymore.
Told in the first person, from the POV of the abused teen, Speaking Truths
offers much insight into the horrific trauma that victims of child abuse often
suffer, and the long road they must travel once removed from their abusive
situation towards any semblance of normality. At the beginning of the book, we
see the world through the eyes of a teen who believes his name is Landon
Starker. He has a low opinion of himself, though he is in reality a survivor, and
he has an even lower opinion of the other students in his high school, their
parents, and his teachers. Landon has come to believe that any abuse that the
man who he’s come to know as “Bob,” whose name is actually Robert Starker, is
a result of Landon’s own stupidity, and is a fit punishment for whatever he
might have done in any particular circumstance.
When Landon notes any behavior displayed by his classmates which he thinks is
stupid and would warrant himself getting abused by Bob, he feels hatred

2. towards them and how stupidly they’re acting. He believes that parent-teacher
nights are a sham, and that the parents who show up for them are not really
there because they love their children and want to know how they’re doing, but
they’re there just to try to fool teachers into thinking that they care. He thinks
the truth about himself was that, no matter how badly Bob treats him, and K.C.,
a boy whom Bob had previously abducted and whom Landon (Tyler Roberts is
his birth name), Bob is still better than his birth parents. Sure, Bob is a drunk,
he beats K.C. (who has disappeared) and Landon, and holds a gun to Landon’s
forehead; but, Bob is the one who Landon believes has rescued him both from
parents who didn’t love him, and also a shelter where he was forced to remain
in a closet for hours at a time.
Fortunately, for Landon, he is identified when he is fingerprinted after he and
his friend, Sam, get busted when Landon has “borrowed” Bob’s van late one
night when Sam convinces Landon to make a run to buy pot with him and give
him a ride there. The FBI descends on Bob’s trailer and whisk Landon away with
them to a special center where victims of abuse go to get counseled and
treated. Bob is not there when the FBI arrive, though he is later captured. Even
when Landon, or Tyler Roberts, is rescued by the FBI, he doesn’t feel gratitude
at first; instead, he feels angry that his life, such as it was, has been disrupted,
and that he has to leave everything that he owns behind in the trailer. He still is
convinced that Bob’s “truth” is the only truth there is, and that when he is
eventually returned to Bob, he’ll only be that much madder at him, and punish
him even more harshly than before.
Landon/Tyler’s parents are understandable excited about Tyler’s rescue, but
are ticked off when they learn that their son won’t be returned to them anytime
soon, and instead will have to spend several weeks more at the center. They
come to visit Landon, and he tries his best to deal with the idea that they might
actually be his parents and that they never stopped loving him and hadn’t really
given him up; but, they want to rush things too much, and Landon hates it that
they want to call him Tyler, and that they seem to negate how important K.C.
was to him and his survival. Sadly, a person can never fully recover from
something like being abducted and abused for years; scars will always remain,
whether they are visible or not.

3. Speaking Truths is a book that will make you think, will make you cry, will make
you root for the narrator, Landon, and his efforts to shift through the various
“truths” he’s been told and discover for himself what the real truth is,
assembling it like a jigsaw puzzle. It has a great forward by Nick Cassavetes,
the director of such movies as Alpha Dog and The Notebook. Speaking Truths is
a book that will touch you deeply, and will stay with you long after you finish
reading it and close the book. Dayna Hester has written a remarkable book, one
that needed to be written, about a childhood lost to child abuse, and what the
ever-changing “truth” is to anyone who is in an abusive situation. I highly
recommend Speaking Truths–read it, you’ll be glad you did!