Easily one of the most gut-wrenching books I've ever read. I was wiping away tears seconds before typing this. I really recommend both this book to everyone, male and female alike. Some spoilers to follow.
We need to keep talking and talking and talking about sexual assault, doing our best to wipe out its scourge. Just as importantly, we need to change the conversation, to get away from the horrific victim-blaming and general rape culture that contribute to the problem of women and young girls being treated like objects rather than human beings. We need to change the conversation so that we're telling men not to rape instead of telling women how not to get raped. Yes, it may sound cliched and heavy-handed to call a book important, but this book is Important.
I don't doubt that there will be reviews that mention how unsympathetic Emma is. I'm positive this was a deliberate decision. In the beginning of the book, we do see how petty and mean-spirited Emma can be, and it is hard to sympathize with her. I can make plenty of arguments about how she's a product of her culture, about how the constant emphasis on a girl's looks lead girls to focus on those looks to the exclusion of all else. I can talk about how girlhood has become the ultimate competition in which the grand prize is earning the attention and adulation of every desirable boy because, after all, don't we teach our girls that their job is to be adored, and that the only proof of their success lies in a boy's demanding their attention? Yes, Emma makes some bad choices, and yes she is often not a nice person, but in the end, none of that matters. She is a victim. No human being deserves to be treated the way she is treated, both during her assault and throughout its aftermath.
There is so much in this book that O'Neill does well. She's so good at making her words brutal and devastating and unadorned. But the most disturbing part is that a lot of what she writes isn't a product of her inventive mind, it's a reflection of what's visible in society. She is holding a mirror up to what's actually going on and giving readers a chance to get on the inside. How many times do newspapers take a disturbingly sympathetic tone toward rapists, talking about how their lives are "ruined", as if the heinous truth of the acts they've committed is somehow worse than their violating their victims, robbing them of their bodily autonomy, their security, and far too often their very sense of self? Talk about a life being ruined. And yet we still have court systems in which it's deemed accessible for victims to be grilled about what they were wearing, what they drank, and peppered with questions about their sexual history and if they might have mislead their attacker. How many times have we all heard pundits debating over girls being too forward, dressing too sexily, and inciting in their victims a frenzied need to take advantage, as if men are one step above beasts, all but unable to control their own impulses? It's deplorable to me that in the 21st century, it's still so common to hear such talk.
I also found it very real and raw how O'Neill handled the reactions of the people around Emma, some of whom are ready to thrust all responsibility on her until her case is investigated, giving it a sheen of authenticity that causes them to change their tune and hasten to position themselves as being on her side. There's a reason why advocates talk about the importance of bystander interventions, and this book does a stellar job of pointing them out. Emma isn't alone in worrying about appearing too shrill or too bossy or too unlikable, to each and every person's detriment. Passivity is an enabler, and while the blame for a crime always lies with the perpetrator, there's no denying that standing idly by is tantamount to aiding and abetting. We all need to learn that keeping our mouths shut is exactly the wrong thing to do.
Another thing that struck me was how Emma's family personalized the experience. Of course something like this is going to affect the people close to her, but it was excruciating to watch the way her family reacted to her assault. Really, I think there's a larger point here: as a society, we're very uncomfortable with crimes like these--as well we should be--so many people seek to deal with that discomfort by sweeping the crime under the rug. By ignoring it and fooling ourselves into believing it doesn't happen, that it's not that common, that victims can somehow prevent themselves from becoming victims, we comfort ourselves with this: not in my house. It's so much easier to pretend that something that terrible could never happen to ourselves or someone we love than it is to confront the problem and do something about it. As horrified as I was by Emma's parents' reactions in particular, I didn't think they seemed unrealistic. I could buy that some parents would be unable to deal with a situation like that, that they would struggle with believing their daughter bore some responsibility.
Honestly, I think books like this should be part of school curriculum, because this is a conversation that's far too important not to be had. I know the likelihood of that is low because there are far too many people who would be violently opposed, but burying our heads in the sand is not going to make this problem go away. All you need to do is spend a little time looking at dating violence and sexual assault statistics for minors and you'll have trouble ever sleeping again. This problem is real, it is happening far too often, and it is not going to go away until we actually do something about it. If a book like this can spur even one person into taking action, even it can wake one person up to things they refused to see, then this book is doing us all a great service.
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