Memoir

Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir by Amanda Knox

Amanda Knox spent four years in a foreign prison for a crime she did not commit.

In the fall of 2007, the 20-year-old college coed left Seattle to study abroad in Italy, but her life was shattered when her roommate was murdered in their apartment.

After a controversial trial, Amanda was convicted and imprisoned. But in 2011, an appeals court overturned the decision and vacated the murder charge. Free at last, she returned home to the U.S., where she has remained silent, until now.

Filled with details first recorded in the journals Knox kept while in Italy, Waiting to Be Heard is a remarkable story of innocence, resilience, and courage, and of one young woman’s hard-fought battle to overcome injustice and win the freedom she deserved.

With intelligence, grace, and candor, Amanda Knox tells the full story of her harrowing ordeal in Italy—a labyrinthine nightmare of crime and punishment, innocence and vindication—and of the unwavering support of family and friends who tirelessly worked to help her win her freedom.

Waiting to Be Heard includes 24 pages of color photographs.

We were at a track meet when my Mom passed me two books. “One’s for you and one’s for Colter.” I handed Colter the book that didn’t have a girl on the cover and looked at the back of the one I thought was mine.

I’d never heard of Amanda Knox, or Meredith Kercher. I flipped through the book and decided that it looked interesting, but I didn’t read it then or in the car. I wanted to finish the book I was currently reading, and that didn’t happen for another couple of days.

When I finally opened Waiting To Be Heard, it didn’t really draw me in. The first couple of chapters were all back story, which isn’t that thrilling. It’s necessary, which is why I kept reading. But if I hadn’t known that Mom was going to be asking me about it, I wouldn’t have.

Thankfully, I stuck it out and read past the boring parts. Because once I got into it, I was enthralled by this story of a girl’s fight to prove her innocence and get out of prison.

Because I’d never heard of the case until I read the book, I don’t know everything that happened. But reading her account of it, I think she’s innocent. I feel so bad that she’s having to deal with a new trial, and when I look at my shelf and see this book I’ll probably Google her to see what’s happening.

My Favorite Scene

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It was Verdict Day. The numbers of press in the pit at the back of the courtroom and in the pressroom next door had steadily swelled. My family had heard there were more than five hundred journalists covering the closing arguments and verdict, and they told me that satellite trucks were parked six across in the piazza in front of the courthouse. Their presence guaranteed that the announcement of a verdict – the most deeply affecting moment of my life -would be beamed around the world. Mom and Chris, Dad and Cassandra, Deanna, Madison, and my aunts Janet and Christina were in the courtroom. Having everyone there was huge. It was a show of force that let me know I wasn’t alone, that they loved me no matter what. For the last four years, their lives had been on hold, too. My Mom and stepdad, my Dad and stepmom, and my grandmother had mortgaged their houses to pay for everything from my groceries to my legal bills; from their shared rented apartment outside Perugia to airfare back and forth to Seattle. They’d sacrificed everything to make sure one of them was there during the eight hours a month I was allowed visitors. My father told me how, over the dozens of drives he’d made to the prison, he’d watched the seasons change and the years go by. He’d passed the same farmland as it was tilled, harvested, turned under. He’d seen buildings go up from foundation to finish. Deanna had been so traumatized she’d dropped out of college. Even so, they’d only ever been able to cheer from the sidelines. Of the 34,248 hours I’d spent in prison since November 6, 2007,I’d been allowed to see them for 376 hours – 1 percent of the time. Still, I needed them absolutely, whether the outcome was good or bad. If my life were definitively taken away from me, they’d be the only good I had. If I were acquitted and released, they’d be the ones I’d return home to. The decision would affect us all.

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The Verdict: 4 of 5 Stars

This was a very gripping story that gave me, a person who’d never heard of the case, a good idea what happened. It’s all from her perspective – I’d like to see a book that had parts from the judges too – but it was a good look into what happened.

Book Squirt

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Waiting To Be Heard

Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir by Amanda Knox