Adnan’s Story
The Search for Truth and Justice After “Serial”
Rabia Chaudry
St. Martin’s Press, August 2016
ISBN 978-1-250-08710-2
Hardcover
I am so glad that I read this book, but at the same time, I almost long for my ignorance. It is easier to be unaware of how disturbingly incompetent and unconcerned the very people paid to “serve and protect” behaved. The outrage really sets in when it becomes glaringly obvious that the plethora of mistakes made was not unique in the police work, but poured into the trial.
To me, this kid never had a chance. There is not one moment where I thought that someone in the judicial and/or legal system truly considered Adnan–the person. Not one time was he treated as “innocent until proven guilty”. To say that the circus that replaced his trial was riddled with errors, illegal manipulation along with flat-out suppression of pertinent information, would be remarkably generous.
If, like me, you know Adnan’s story from the “Serial” (and/or subsequent) podcast(s), you know this. And maybe, like me, you are still consumed with a sickening, gut-wrenching wonder as to how so much could go so horribly wrong—unquestionably, indisputably wrong—without any repercussions or efforts to acknowledge, own and correct the mistakes, then perhaps you already have this in your To-Read stack. Basically—if you’ve been at all touched by this tragic but all too true tale—I whole-heartedly believe you will be grateful for Ms. Chaudry’s work. The author says it best: the story “Serial told” “…was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth, or the whole story” and if ever there was a whole story—with its entire truth—that begged to be told, it is Adnan’s.
Reviewed by jv poore, October 2016.
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