{"id":4145,"date":"2025-09-22T13:19:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T13:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=4145"},"modified":"2025-09-22T13:19:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T13:19:00","slug":"book-review-stolen-by-elizabeth-jaeger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=4145","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Stolen by Elizabeth Jaeger"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stolen<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by Elizabeth Jaeger<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong> Memoir \/ Grief & Loss<\/p>\n

ISBN: <\/strong>9781963115499<\/p>\n

Print Length:<\/strong> 282 pages<\/p>\n

Publisher:<\/strong> Unsolicited Press<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reviewed by Gabriella Harrison<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>In the year the world shut down, one family learned how much could be stolen in a single month.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Elizabeth Jaeger\u2019s Stolen<\/em> starts as a pandemic diary and becomes something far heavier. The shift happens on Day eight, when her father gets sick. Before that, it\u2019s all Chromebook meltdowns and Taekwondo cancellations\u2014the kind of stuff everyone remembers from early lockdown. After that, it\u2019s a different book entirely.<\/p>\n

Jaeger aptly captures the absurd stress of March 2020 in the early pages. There\u2019s her son\u2019s failed Zoom call, the fight over homeschool curriculum, and the universal parental dread of online learning videos. \u201cI hate technology. It is beyond me,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> she remarks. The prose is wholly unvarnished. When her kid screams, \u201cYou need to help me, and only me!\u201d<\/em><\/strong> it feels real and relatable.<\/p>\n

Then the virus hits home. Her father\u2019s decline is documented in brutal, ticking-clock detail: the 4:33 AM ambulance call, the ventilator, the hospital transfers. What sticks isn\u2019t the medical jargon but the small horrors, like the FedEx package of his belongings arriving after his death, still packed with the clothes he thought he\u2019d wear home.<\/p>\n

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Jaeger\u2019s anger is raw and specific. She rages at the celebrity testing scandals (\u201cHow rich do you have to be in this country for someone to care about you?\u201d<\/em><\/strong>), the funeral delays, even the way her father\u2019s doctor vanishes for two weeks. But the quiet moments cut deeper. Her son making Mickey Mouse pancakes alone or texting his dead grandfather\u2019s iPad is evocative.<\/p>\n

The \u201cSnapshot Rewind\u201d sections contrast and complement the hospital updates. One memory of her dad coaching Little League is especially moving when read against his ICU stats. Another, about teaching her son cursive because \u201ccivilized people write in cursive,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> becomes a eulogy in miniature.<\/p>\n

Some entries ramble; others simply express a profound grief. There are occasional instances of repetition, especially when circling her regrets (not hugging him at the hospital, not visiting sooner). But that\u2019s the point. Real grief doesn\u2019t have perfect pacing.<\/p>\n

By the end, the book\u2019s title makes terrible sense. COVID stole time, rituals, last words. What\u2019s left is this: a messy, howling thing that refuses to offer comfort or closure.<\/p>\n

In Elizabeth Jaeger\u2019s memoir, Stolen<\/em>, emotions spill over without restraint. At times, the prose is ragged, but that\u2019s part of its power. This isn\u2019t a book about COVID-19 as a historical event; it\u2019s about the human cost of that event, the families shattered in its wake. By the final entry, as she relaxes on the beach with her son, there\u2019s no illusion of returning to what life once was. But in that stillness, there\u2019s a quiet acceptance and the sense that moving forward doesn\u2019t mean forgetting, only learning how to carry what remains.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Jaeger\u2019s Stolen<\/em> is a heartrending, necessary read. One that provides a poignant account that will resonate with many families who lost loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for reading Gabriella Harrison\u2019s book review of Stolen <\/em>by Elizabeth Jaeger! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.<\/p>\n

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The post Book Review: Stolen by Elizabeth Jaeger<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stolen by Elizabeth Jaeger Genre: Memoir \/ Grief & Loss ISBN: 9781963115499 Print Length: 282 pages Publisher: Unsolicited Press Amazon Bookshop Reviewed by Gabriella Harrison In the year the world shut down, one family learned how much could be stolen in a single month. Elizabeth Jaeger\u2019s Stolen starts as a pandemic diary and becomes something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}