Free by Amanda Knox review: life affirming memoir that is full of grace

Writing a memoir while still in your twenties is usually inadvisable. For Amanda Knox, writing her first — Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir — so young was a necessity. Falsely accused in Italy of the murder of her friend and roommate, British student Meredith Kercher, when she was exonerated she had legal debts to pay. At 37 years old, her second memoir is a far more self-assured and affirming account of learning to keep living through the roiling trauma that is life.

True Crime junkies will find little to titillate them here. Knox lays out the cold hard facts succinctly in the pages of the prologue. Kercher was raped and murdered by Rudy Guede, a known criminal who had already slipped through the authorities net. Before any physical evidence was gathered, the police cooked up a bizarre narrative that Knox and her boyfriend of a week conspired to assault Kercher, torturing her into a false confession. When conflicting evidence arises, they double down and Knox is sucked into the trial of the decade.