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 enlarge | Authors: Don & Susie Van Ryn, Newell, Colleen & Whitney Cerak
Creator: Mark Tabb
Publisher: Howard Books
Category: Book
List Price: $21.99
Buy Used: $7.91
You Save: $14.08 (64%)
New (49) Collectible (3) from $10.89
Avg. Customer Rating:  123 reviews
Sales Rank: 4572
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.7 x 1.3
ISBN: 1416567356
Dewey Decimal Number: 617.4810440922
EAN: 9781416567356
ASIN: 1416567356
Publication Date: March 25, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: This Book is in very good condition. The Dust Cover shows some wear.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Wonderfully inspirational! April 28, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Amazing story and SO inspirational. I enjoyed every page. It should be sold with a box of Kleenex!
 Mistaken Identity April 28, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The book was an easy read..one night for me. The story was easy to follow and written by the two families so you know you were getting the facts. I have leant the book out to several friends, some knew the story and some did not, but they all enjoyed it. As tragic as the story was, it was refreshing to gain some understanding as to how it could "possibly happen", which was a question asked by just about everyone.
Excellent read!! April 27, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This real-life story was a very moving and yet profoundly uplifting account of the tragic events as they happened. It goes from Whitney's experience to Laura's family's experience effortlessly. Be sure to have your tissue box ready.
Inspiring true story April 27, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is such a testimony to the faith of these families as they go through unimaginable circumstances. I highly recommend this book. It's inspirational to those going through all kinds of circumstances, as well as fascinating to read all that transpires in their story.
Identity Lost and Found April 25, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I agree with the reviewers who said there was too much scripture citing and religious proselytizing (or what comes very close to it) in "Mistaken Identity", but I have to give the book five stars anyway. It starts with a bang--a bizarre phone call in the middle of the night to the mother of an accident victim who was buried over a month ago, telling her that her daughter is actually alive. From that shocking beginning to the end of the book, which can be read in a day or two, the reader is captivated by a story that seems to practically write itself. I have to give the author credit, however, for the way it's handled. At first most of the attention is on the family of Whitney, the girl who is believed to have been killed in an accident--along with a number of her friends riding in the same school van-- but is actually lying comatose in a Fort Wayne, Indiana hospital. Then the focus turns to the family of Laura, who physically resembles Whitney and is believed to be the critically ill girl in the intensive care unit, as they help nurse her back to consciousness over the course of the next five weeks, until she is finally able to tell them her name is not Laura but Whitney Cerak. At this point she and her real family are reunited, the two families meet and console each other, and Whitney then struggles to slowly regain the personality that was lost after her severe brain trauma reduced her to an almost child-like state.
It's a moving, inspirational, and even cautionary tale. The lesson I took away is that if your son or daughter dies, it's probably best not to take someone else's word for it, but to view his or her body for yourself, painful though it may be. Also, emergency responders, coroners, and hospital staff may be more cautious after this case in the way they identify deceased accident victims.
As far as the heavy dose of Christianity, even though I spent 14 years in Fort Wayne in the heart of "Jesus Land", the world that these families and their friends inhabit seems alien to me and almost too good to be true. They never swear, talk about sex, or have negative thoughts. Nevertheless, reading the book started to make me realize that, even though the actual words and ideas they use to express their spirituality may seem somewhat simplistic, it is the underlying attitudes and behavior that really matter, and it would be refreshing to think that such people as those described in this book really do exist.
Nevertheless, in my opinion, it is situations like this--a cruel stroke of fate in the form of an out-of control semi-truck crossing the interstate median and suddenly ending the lives of these young religious college students-- where the limitations of Christianity are clearly exposed. Christianity has no answer for "why bad things happen to good people", but is only a solace when dealing with such personal tragedies.
Suppose--to do a little proselytizing myself-- instead of understanding God as an all-loving, all-forgiving human being named Jesus, we believe that in addition to God the ultimate mystery, there are also lesser gods-- Pluto, Saturn, and Uranus, etc.-- who are not people-like entities and who don't care about us personally, but who do work in accordance with rules that are somewhat predictable and rational, a fact which itself can be a source of comfort and acceptance.
Whitney Cerak's birthdate (4-29-87) was quoted in the book from her premature obituary. Before I looked it up on my computer, I decided she had to have a strong connection between Neptune (the planet of confusion, mystery, and misunderstandings) and either the 8th house (of death) or Pluto, which rules things like death and comas. This is what she turned out to have--a very close aspect between Neptune and Pluto. Pluto also closely opposes her Sun, which is very appropriate, because this aspect fits the way her personality, her identity, was temporarily almost wiped clean, and had to be recreated or recaptured all over again. The mistaken-identity element of her experience is fascinating, but the real inspiration comes from the nearly complete recovery of Whitney and her reclaiming of the life that was for awhile in Limbo (a Christian term for a state that is neither heaven or hell), or as I would put it, the Lost and Found.
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