THE RISING by Ryan D'Agostino

MURDER, HEARTBREAK AND THE

POWER OF HUMAN RESILIENCE

IN AN

AMERICAN TOWN
 

THE RISING

by

Ryan D'Agosstino

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BOOK DETAILS
(from Amazon)
 The astonishing story of one man’s recovery in the face of traumatic loss—and a powerful meditation on the resilience of the soul

On July 23, 2007, Dr. William Petit suffered an unimaginable horror: Armed strangers broke into his suburban Connecticut home in the middle of the night, bludgeoned him nearly to death, tortured and killed his wife and two daughters, and set their house on fire. He miraculously survived, and yet living through those horrific hours was only the beginning of his ordeal. Broken and defeated, Bill was forced to confront a question of ultimate consequence: How does a person find the strength to start over and live again after confronting the darkest of nightmares?

In The Rising, acclaimed journalist Ryan D’Agostino takes us into Bill Petit’s world, using unprecedented access to Bill and his family and friends to craft a startling, inspiring portrait of human strength and endurance. To understand what produces a man capable of surviving the worst, D’Agostino digs deep into Bill’s all-American upbringing, and in the process tells a remarkable story of not just a man’s life, but of a community’s power to shape that life through its embrace of loyalty and self-sacrifice as its most important values. Following Bill through the hardest days—through the desperate times in the aftermath of the attack and the harrowing trials of the two men responsible for it—The Rising offers hope that we can find a way back to ourselves, even when all seems lost.

Today, Bill Petit has remarried. He and his wife have a baby boy. The very existence of this new family defies rational expectation, and yet it confirms our persistent, if often unspoken, belief that we are greater than what befalls us, and that if we know where to look for strength in trying times, we will always find it. Bill’s story, told as never before in The Rising, is by turns compelling and uplifting, an affirmation of the inexhaustible power of the human spirit.

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Crown (September 15, 2015)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804140162
• ISBN-13: 978-0804140164

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AUTHOR
RYAN D’AGOSTINO is the editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics magazine. Previously, he was an articles editor at Esquire, and he has written for The New Yorker, Ski, and other publications.

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REVIEW
 I found this book to be well written but a little hard to get into.  Once you start reading and you start turning the pages, you start to find you are interested and actually finding it hard to put down.  It isn't for the faint of heart.  It is about torture  of a Father, a Mother and their two daughters. The two girls and their mother were murdered and the father was left to die. Somehow he managed to live and told what happened.  He then tried to start a new life. It's what we do with what we're given that is important.  Rising above tragedy is extremely hard and not everyone achieves that. This is a true story of Dr. William Petit and what happened to his family back in 2007. It started when two strangers with weapons broke into the Petit's home.  What happened next was indeed devastating and horrific. The two strangers, who were later identified as Steven  Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, went on a rampage. They tortured, beat and assaulted the family and then left them for dead.  The strangers were long time criminals and didn't stop at that.  They then set the house on fire.  The Dr. lived, how, no one knows, but he recovered somewhat in the hospital.  He suffered from PTSD afterwards.  It took a little time but the criminals were caught and tried.  This took place in Connecticut. What happened to the two criminals?  Were they justly tried?  The writer, Ryan D'Agostino wrote a book that is not easily forgotten.  It not only  is sad, but there are so important things to be learned.  Life deals us some horrible blows sometimes.  Do we just give up and say NO MORE?  Do we pick ourselves up and strive to go on?  All people are different.  Some can go on and there are those who can't.  Which was Dr. Petit?  Pick up a copy and find out if Dr. Petit achieved a new life. No one could possibly fully recover from this kind of tragedy, but can you go on?  Find out what happened to the two criminals.  Did they  justly pay for their many crimes?   A book that can be enjoyed, enlightening and yet you get the suspense and the sense of a thriller.  The ending will definitely surprise you.

I received a complimentary copy  of this book from the author, Ryan D'Agostino and Blogging for Books for my unbiased review. No other compensation took place.

I would give this book 4  STARS.

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