Living with Conviction: A True Crime Memoir by Toby Dorr – Review by Kerry Carr

Living With Conviction: Unexpected Sisterhood, Healing, and Redemption in the Wake of Life-Altering Choices by Toby Dorr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a really good read. It is the authors Memoir about her life, the decisions she made and the consequences of those decisions. It is a really raw and emotional story. It gives the reader a indepth look into the prison system and how inmates are treated. It also shows us what life is like after a person is released and trying to rebuild their life.
The author’s life sounded pretty normal, she had a good job, a husband, nice lifestyle and kids, however like in a lot of seeming perfect lives the reality isn’t always the picture the outside world sees. When she meets John who is an inmate at the prison she volunteers at the connection is instant. She finds everything she is missing in her life in John and when they make plans for a life together she makes the decision to help him. A decision which will change her life forever.

I could understand Toby’s decision to cling on to and grab the happiness she was missing. But that one decision changes her life so much. In some ways in a really negative way however, as we learn it also gave her the opportunity to really find out who she was as a person. It was interesting to see and read about her growth and development of character as she had to deal with when she was taken out of her safe and comfortable environment and placed somewhere she had never experienced before.
This story was a really inspiring read and seeing Toby’s growth and resilience as she overcome all the obstacles in front of her allows the reader the see that no matter what bad or misguided choices you made you can always change it around and become a more aware and developed person because of it.

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