Forever Exposed is an excruciating book—and I mean that as a compliment. It tells the story of the anguish that Lesli and Christos go through following the sudden loss of their daughter, Nikki, who crashed her father’s Porsche (she stole the keys) into a tollbooth on the highway. She was killed instantly.
The book is also about getting justice (after all, Nikki is gone): someone at the California Highway Patrol leaked photos of the crime scene (Nikki was decapitated) on the Internet. That isn’t the worst of it: the photos get posted on more than a thousand Web sites, which then attract people who say Nikki was an idiot who deserved to die. The postings grow worse and, it’s hard to believe, even vile.
The writing is strong and vivid—and deeply personal: at times the story reads more as a thriller than a sober recounting of events. Their situation is emotionally searing, and the writing captures the raw emotion of parents under siege. Upon hearing bad news about their attempt to sue the California Highway Patrol: “I feel [the heat of vengeance] brewing hot beneath my skin; as if the words were sulfur and I was the match.” Or this reaction, from another when they are let down, again: “I feel a great force of death erupting all round me. The weight of its presence bears down on me, crushing my chest.”
The only distraction for me was the book’s relentless religious commentary. I, as an atheist reader (and editor), would have dispensed with all the God talk in favor of focusing on the heartless behavior of the California Highway Patrol. In the end… well, I won’t tell you how this terrible saga wraps up, but the ending is a measurably happy one despite it being awfully bittersweet.
Reviewed by Barry Lyons for IndieReader