Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home

Resilience and forgiveness are recurring concepts in Shasta Groene’s story, especially as she attempts to reclaim her identity after enduring unimaginable abuse. The narrative doesn’t present healing as linear or clean as many true crime stories do; instead, it emphasizes how deeply abuse shapes a person and how recovery is often mixed with confusion, anger, and contradiction. Throughout the book, Shasta’s resilience is contrasted with Dylan’s emotional and psychological withdrawal and his inability to cope with the abuse. This is not a judgment; both children suffered terrible victimization. For whatever reason, at the camp, Shasta took on a more active role. Decades after her rescue, resilience continues to be her main mechanism for survival.

Shasta’s conflict is captured in the line, “She knows that when people look at her, judge her, or even feel sorry for her, they are only thinking of what had happened to her. Not who she is now or, maybe even more crucially, who she wants to be” (6). The description demonstrates the emotional isolation that follows trauma and that resilience is a double-edged sword. Shasta isn’t seen as a whole person by the world, instead she’s viewed as a symbol of what was done to her—and what she survived. Her journey toward forgiveness is a fight to reclaim that missing personhood and to become someone defined not by her abuse, but by the life she has now.

Forgiveness plays a complex role in Shasta’s recovery as she is challenged by multiple therapists to forgive Jet. Jet ironically seeks forgiveness in disturbing and manipulative ways throughout his life. At the camp, somehow he comes to believe that Shasta changed him and taught him how to love. He decides not to kill Shasta because he sees her as the person who finally gave him grace and gave him the forgiveness he sought. Contrastingly, Shasta’s forgiveness is ultimately not for Jet, but for herself. She realizes that her hatred is its own kind of prison, and it acts as a force keeping her emotionally tied to the man who destroyed her family. Her decision to forgive Jet is an act of resilience; he was a destructive force in her past, but his destructiveness doesn’t have to overshadow her future.

Forgiving Jet does not mean excusing or absolving him; it means releasing Shasta from needing revenge and freeing her to define her future. She begins to understand that forgiveness is not a gift to her abuser, but a step toward rewriting her internalized narrative of pain. This growth becomes evident in her interactions with others, such as Stephanie, a fellow inmate who also committed harm, though unlike Jet, she feels immense guilt for it. One of the core elements of resilience the book identifies is forgiving oneself for things outside of one’s control. Through forgiveness as an act of resilience, Shasta decides that healing is something she deserves, even if the scars of painful memories remain.

The theme of speaking out and reclaiming one’s truth is central to Shasta’s journey. Much of her story is shaped by the silence that follows trauma; there is the silence imposed by others, and silence she adopts herself as a means of survival. Over the course of the book, it becomes increasingly clear that breaking that silence is not only difficult but dangerous. However, it is the most important step in Shasta’s process of healing and reclaiming her identity.

In the early chapters, Shasta is frequently seen as a symbol. She is a child survivor of a horrific crime and not a person. The media prints stories about the abductions, but rarely do people allow her to speak for herself. Even when she enters treatment centers or appears in court, others define her narrative.

This dehumanizing experience pushes Shasta into a long period of silence and defiance. She uses lies, avoidance, and self-destruction to try to regain her narrative, but this only pushes her further from credibility. At Vista, therapists often dismiss her, accuse her of lying, or tell her to pretend everything is fine. Their refusal to hear her truth only reinforces her belief that silence is safer than honesty.

Shasta’s silence begins to shift when she sees the damage it causes not just to herself, but to others. Her turning point comes through relationships, especially with other girls who have been harmed and who carry their own secrets. Speaking to Stephanie, for example, Shasta realizes that telling the truth can be a way of freeing someone else from shame. This realization mirrors her own need to be understood beyond her trauma.

When Shasta finally tells her full story and faces the reality of Dylan’s death, she begins reclaiming power. Her voice becomes a form of resistance against the people that tried to define her, and she is finally respected as the authority on her own experiences. Sharing her truth, even when painful, becomes a declaration that she survived, that she matters, and that her voice cannot be taken from her.