The author’s strategy of inserting actual photographs, taken before and during her kidnapping, gives the reader additional evidence to go along with her writing. She describes what her life was like before she was taken and the pictures with her sister bring the reader back to this much more pleasant time. They also allow the audience to think about her previous life in comparison to her now “stolen life” and understand her dreadful reality. The photos of her two, out of the dozens, cats help give the readers a face to the descriptions. The pictures of cats are specifically important, because they played a major role in keeping Dugard company while she was living in the secret backyard. Each and every one of them held a special place in her
