Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir

Amanda Knox, an American college student who was charged with the brutal murder of her roommate while studying in Italy, recounts her four years of imprisonment and the dizzying series of legal roadblocks to her eventual release in 2011. As the narrator of this audio edition, Knox sounds authentic, sincere, and vulnerable. In early portions of the narrative related to the crime scene and arrest, her emotions are muted, conveying the same deer-in-the-headlights reaction for which she was skewered in media coverage at the time. Yet, while recounting her experiences in prison after being convicted, when she grasped the gravity of the situation, Knox conveys her sense of desperation during a process in which the cards seemed hopelessly stacked against her. Her conversations with a sympathetic prison chaplain and with her deeply loyal family and close friends are especially moving. In her recitation of legal details, Knox falls into occasional lapses in pronunciation, but given the weight of the personal aspects of her performance, these flaws prove minor and don’t detract from the listening experience. A Harper hardcover. (Apr.)