A book review of You’ll Never Find Us: A Memoir by Jeanne Baker Guy
Stars: ****
She Writes Press (2021)
Memoir
288 pages
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affiliate links.
Summary: In 1977, Jeanne’s German nationalist ex-husband, Klaus, tells her he’s gotten a new job and wants to take their three-year-old daughter and six-year-old son away for a long weekend to celebrate. Jeanne relents. But Klaus never returns and instead sends Jeanne a letter, delivered by a mutual friend, in which he declares that he has fled to Germany and she will never see him, or her children, again.
The next four months are filled with agony, despair, and anger as Jeanne seeks legal support but quickly learns that federal parental kidnapping laws will offer her little help. She reflects on her tumultuous ten-year marriage to Klaus and the unsettling events that followed their divorce. A product of the patriarchal culture of the 1950s, Jeanne’s nice-girl mentality is being tested and reshaped by the feminist movement of the 1970s, and she finds that the kidnapping ultimately becomes a doorway to unexpected strength.
You’ll Never Find Us is the story of a young mother coming into her own power, regardless of past mistakes, bad judgment, and fears; the story of a woman who realizes she must tap into her newfound resilience and courage to find her stolen children―and steal them back.
You’ll Never Find Us
This is the story of a father who takes his children away from their mother and leaves her a note saying he took them to Germany and “You’ll Never Find Us!”
This book was riveting but also a little frustrating. The book alternates between telling the story of the parents meeting, childbirth and early life AND the day the kids are taken away and beyond. Perhaps others might like it this way, but reading about the stolen children and then going back to read about their early life drove me a little crazy. It bugged me a little to read about the father being oh so loving right after reading how he stole the children. I know there are two sides to every story (at least) and what he did doesn’t mean he wasn’t loving before that. I just really wanted to know how it was going after the children were stolen and not what life was like before.
As you can see though I still consider this a 4 star book and like I said it was riveting. It was just a minor problem, probably only for me. I would have rather read it in order.
This book reminded me of another I read called Have You Seen These Children? by the same publisher. It’s a sad fact that this happens often enough for that to happen.
This story takes place in the 1970s. Laws about child stealing by parents were not as strict. There was nothing the police could do in their home state. It’s crazy to me to think that parents were getting away with this before the laws caught up.
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