Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was A Girl
By Jeannie Vanasco
★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10
357 pages
“Bold, unsettling, and timely . . . critically important.”—Laurie Halse Anderson,TIME
What’s it about?
Jeannie Vanasco is in college when her good friend Mark rapes her. Fourteen years later she decides to write a memoir about this experience. Vanesco makes the unusual decision to include Mark's viewpoint in the story. In cases of sexual assault 8 out of 10 victims know their perpetrators. This book is an unusual exploration into sexual assault.
What did it make me think about?
Can good people do horrible things?
Should I read it?
Anyone interested in the #metoo movement will be drawn to this book.
A passage I marked
Mark said the assault changed the story he could tell about himself. It changed my personal narrative too- or it confirmed what I'd suspected but was afraid to admit: I cared too much about pleasing men. I didn't stop Mark partly because I didn't want to embarrass him. What sort of feminist acts like this? I asked myself- instead of asking, What sort of friend does what Mark did? "
