"Stolen Youth" (It Happened to Nancy - Anonymous Teenager)

Member Name: Trevor15

Product:	It Happened to Nancy - Anonymous Teenager
Date:	03/06/01 (2929 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Educational

Disadvantages: It happened at all.

While most other 14 year old girls were caught up with lipstick, movies and boys, Nancy was dying.

"I can't believe it. Tonight's the night I've been waiting for forever. . .we're going to see Garth Brooks." So begins the real-life, two year diary of Nancy (pseudonym), chronicling her experience of date-rape and as a result, contraction of HIV and AIDS.

The excitement of seeing her pop idol live became tainted when an incident broke out, causing Nancy to be separated from her companions and escort. A handsome Colin rescues and eases the now hyperventilating teenager to safety. Nancy falls in love. Over the ensuing weeks and months she becomes infatuated with her secret boyfriend, they date, they play and he makes her feel special. She feels so grown up when she organises to have the house to herself, throwing her excitement into making dinner for her 24 year old boyfriend. But the rendezvous backfires when, during that night he rapes her and infects her with the HIV virus.

Nancy articulately relays the events of that fateful night and of the following into her diary, along with her confusion, fears, anger and reluctance to tell her mother of the rape. Eventually it does come to light and investigations ensue into the identity and whereabouts of the perpetrator. Time begins to pass and Nancy, not the most physically robust kid, begins to feel continuously ill. Ultimately a HIV infection is diagnosed which, with Nancy's already challenged immune system, races ahead to AIDS.

Throughout the two year diary, this capable little writer lays open her secret fears. She knows her parents are hurting for her, but they don't know she hear their cries in the dark: "I often hear him [dad] crying in the night. I'm hurting everybody I love soooooo much." She feels guilt for their pain, she hurts for them, for herself but tries to get on with living while she can. Every page of the diary is heart
breaking. The reader knows from the cover what the conclusion is, but even so, you can't help praying against the odds that this vivacious young girl makes it, experiences adulthood and gives her loving parents grandchildren. It's so hard to turn the page and read her hope while also knowing that it's not to be.

A child should never have to make the choice of whether to "Go off AZT [combination drug therapy], which keeps people symptom-less longer, or stay on AZT and go blind." But these are the choices that Nancy was hit with. From a happy-go-lucky American teenager to a skeleton in less than two years tears at the soul. She writes with candour and a perception beyond her years. Traces of the anxious teenager, caught up with proms and boys and clothes comes through, but then she remembers that none of this is to be. She's dying. She knows that her little body was never the most strongest but with the tireless virus fighting her, even the usual 5 -10 years incubation period of the disease is stolen from her. She fights daily for the next two years, paints, draws, becomes infatuated with a boy and combs her long blond hair; but at age 16 her life is extinguished. . .while she looks out over the views of her Aunt's farm, out to the stream and the horizon beyond. Among her last written words she writes,

"I hope there's never another ME, except ME."

Nancy's legacy lives on, not least in the book's dedication: "Dedicated to every kid who thinks AIDS can't happen to him or her."

Having to cram a lifetime's living into just sixteen years, Nancy made the brave decision to publish her diaries and to share with others. Dr Beatrice Sparks, whom prepared the best-seller "Go ask Alice"* for publication was contacted during Nancy's final months. The teenager was particularly enamoured by Dr B as Go ask Alice was her own favourite book and indeed she ma
kes reference to it in her diaries. Together they have created reading material that should be on the bookshelf of every home, not least for the diaries themselves but also for the no-nonsense information at the rear relating to contracting AIDS. Dr B has also chronicled the questions that Nancy asked of her and the answers she provided, covering issues such as rape, sexually transmitted diseases, etc. The answers are factual, though not shocking. Dr B doesn't use too many euphemisms, instead, answers Nancy's questions in a straightforward and coherent manner. . .

It happened to Nancy is outrageously beautiful and yet so very, very cruel.



* Go ask Alice is the diaries of a young girl who becomes involved in drugs.


ISBN 0-380-77315-5
P/B £5.99

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