I know, I'm amazing! Getting this blog post out almost a week earlier than usual? What! Yes, well, it's been a busy month, and I've had to be a bit more organized with my time. This is a result of planning instead of procrastinating. Anyway. I read two outstanding books this month that I'm excited to share with you. Also, I read another [secret] book that I'm doing a solo blog post about coming up in July. Keep your eyes peeled on social media for the exact date I'll be posting, but trust me, it's going to be good!
By the way, besides just reading for pleasure and loving to share what I read with others, I love helping out other authors. I am working (diligently) on publishing my own book and hope that one day, others will return the favor of promoting literature. If you're an author (independent or not!) and you would like me to review your book, feel free to reach out to me on any of my social media accounts, and I'll promptly get back to you. Also, if you've read something absolutely amazing that you think I should read, tell me! I'm always up for suggestions.
Ok, you guys ready?
"Asking For It"- Louise O'Neill
This book, THIS BOOK! I'm just going to warn you that there may be spoilers in this review *gasp*! I know, I'm usually excellent about keeping my lid shut about the happenings in books and give you a little overview and my opinion. But this book is so important that I have to share what's in my heart.
Everybody needs to read this book. Teenagers, adults, men, women, everyone. It is so important that we as a society discuss rape culture, understanding rape victims, and how we treat these young men that find it acceptable to do that to women. And I know what you guys are thinking, rape is such a complicated topic, there are so many variables, what about this and that. No. Stop. It's simple. No means no. Failure to say no does not mean yes. Only yes means yes. This is what we need to be teaching our children. This is the only acceptable way.
Our main character, Emma, I found quite unrelatable when I started the book. And I wondered why O'Neill decided to write a character that would be so hard for the average young adult (or adult) to relate to. And then I understood. Because rape doesn't just happen to the most relatable people, or the shy, or the prettiest girl in school, there are no "typical rape victims." Emma is very popular, beautiful, and she has some issues. The vibe I got from her was very much, 'Keeping Up With the Joneses.' The whole book is riddled with, 'What will people say? What will people think of us?', and it was sickening. When Emma and some of her friends go to a party one night, things get out of hand, Emma gets exceedingly drunk and then by the next morning there were photos circling Facebook and SnapChat like a wildfire.
I've read other books about rape victims, one excellent one here, and the way that their peers, parents, siblings, the media even treated them is so vastly different that it needs to be addressed. In one book, the victim was drugged, she had a reputation for being a very clean cut girl, she didn't know her attacker, she wasn't engaging in any questionable activity. She got treated as a victim. Everyone believed her, and she had a stable support system. In this book, Emma was dressed a certain way at the party; she was willingly drinking and using recreational drugs, she was flirting, she had a reputation for leading guys on, all of these factors lead to her being treated like a pariah. She was slut-shamed, called a liar, a whore, attacked so much at school she had to quit and attempted suicide twice. Her parents asked repetitively if she was sure she was attacked [there were f*cking pictures!], she didn't have a support system, she didn't have the tools she needed to recover from it.
A major theme in this book was, "Nobody likes a girl who makes a fuss," and it's true. Because once a fuss was made everything got worse for her. And it's not acceptable. She kept saying things like, "I've ruined their lives," and I just wanted to reach in the book and shake her, yelling, "They ruined yours!". The thing about this book is it's not just Emma's story. This is just about every rape victim's story. This is not the first time I've heard this one. I've heard several that fall along these lines. Most rape victims know their attackers, most fail to say no but they don't consent, most will say, "Well, I had been drinking... I was dressed this way..." and society will say, "What did you expect?"
They expected not to get f*cking raped!
I have to hand it to O'Neill because this book was spot on. It hurt me, angered me, made me more aware. The title screams what is wrong with us as a society. That we would instead blame a victim because she was acting this way or wasn't being careful, I mean 'boys will be boys', right? Wrong. It's up to us to change this kind of thinking, and it needs to be done. I dread the day when I have to tell my daughter she needs to be careful when drinking, that she needs to dress a certain way so that she won't attract a man's eye. I hate that I'm even writing this! I don't want to tell her these things! I don't want her to be afraid that something like this would happen to her. But until we change the way we talk about rape culture, rape victims, and start taking all of this a little more seriously, this is the world we're letting our children grow up. And it needs to change.
Read this book. Spread the word. Stand up for change.
"Before I Go To Sleep"- S.J. Watson
This was the book club selection this month, and it was terrific. Just rocked my boat the whole way through. Christine wakes up every morning with no memory. Sometimes she thinks she's a child, sometimes a young woman in her twenties, in reality, Christine is forty-seven years old. Every day she must hear that she had an accident, her memory is gone, she has a husband named Ben and must accept all of this as truth.
Or does she?
This was an amazingly wild ride of truth, lies, story-telling, I mean it was just great. I, personally, really enjoy books about repressed memories, so this worked for me. And the ending was just perfect. Follow Christine as she navigates truth from lies and begins to untangle her lost past with the help of a long lost friend and a determined doctor. You won't be disappointed.
If reading books about repressed memories and dissociative fugues are your jam, check out "The Good Girl" by Mary Kubica, "Love Water Memory" by Jennie Shortridge, "Blood Memory" (an all-time favorite!) by Greg Iles, and "How to be a Good Wife" by Emma Chapman.
I know, that's a lot of stuff, but hey, I'm here to serve!
I know this was a long post, and I got pretty worked up at the beginning, but both of these books were so amazing. It took me a few weeks to get over O'Neill's novel enough to start another one. It hit me hard. I hope you guys are having a fantastic summer, remember to watch your feeds for my big announcement in July! See you soon, happy reading!
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