You Know Your Way Home by Suzanne Jauchius

Title:  You Know Your Way Home

Author: Suzanne Jauchius

Publisher: Bree Noa Publishing Co.

Published: 2008

Format:  E-book

Pages: 333

Source: Received from the author

in exchange for an honest review

Read: August 10-11 2012

In A Few Words: Spooky, question provoking

My Rating: 4 stars

Goodreads: Add This to Your To-Read Shelf

Goodreads Synopsis:

A true story about a woman with 5 husbands, secretly chasing killers and missing people, until she collides with a brash mystery man, an abrupt therapist in a padded room and a revered Lakota medicine man.

Melissa's Musings:

This book starts out with some serious action as it opens on the author and her friend chasing a car that only Jauchius can see. I knew it would be good if it started out like that. It's not without flaws, but I wasn't disappointed by the book.

After the car chase, the author goes back to explain more about her childhood, and how she always had a sort of second sight, she could "see" things. I've always been interested in subjects like this, and reading about Jauchius journey was both interesting and insightful. The format was a  little offputting at first, starting out with the car chase and then slowing down and going backwards felt strange when I first started reading, but now after completion I realized that it was the way the author's saw the journey, maybe it was a way to chart her evolution to start in the present, go to the past and then wind the way back to the present again.

Jauchius home life and upbringing was rough, to say the least, and I felt like it shaped a lot of her character. She was constantly being reprimanded, and was under a lot of pressure. She kind of had to fend for herself a lot, which is (in my opinion) why she was so quick to marry, so that she could be taken care of. She married an astonishing 5 times, and each time she married not the best kind of person. Some of the relationships she was pushed into by her family, some she rushed into. The nice thing about this was, she didn't make excuses (mostly) for these marriages, and she admitted that she was as she put it, a "a slow learner"

There are a lot of spiritual/spooky elements to this book. Particularly with the author's experiences with spirits, and "seeing." The author's abilities are psychometric, which means that she has the ability to feel or touch an object and see images. As the book progressed, so, it seemed, did her abilities. Later on in the book she was able to see images simply by talking with someone over the phone. The most interesting thing about these abilities is that with them, she worked on and was indirectly connected to some high profile cases including the Polly Klaas case. 

Some of the experiences were just downright spooky. So much so that I had to stop reading this and wait to finish it in the morning because I was too freaked out to keep reading it alone at night. One particular experience the author described that I found interesting was that of "poltergeisting" This is where her excess adolescent energy took a sort of material shape, and ran rampant in their house, knocking into things, walking around the house, etc. That is creepy in and of itself, but then I wondered if somehow my own excess energy ran wild at night too, when I was a teenager. 

The author also talks about a lot of spiritual material, including Lakota rituals and Celtic history, which was interesting to read about from her perspective.

Another thing that I really enjoyed about this book was the author's personal journey and her own self growth. She finally got out of her last abusive relationship and really decided to work on herself. It was nice to watch her take that leap of faith even though she was scared to, but then come out on top eventually. It showed that you really can change your life and your surroundings if you put your mind to it.

Overall, a very enjoyable, albeit a bit spooky book. I'd recommend it for anyone who likes books about personal growth, the paranormal or hard to explain experiences, and psychics,  etc.