by Alice Sebold
I listened to this as an audio book. Ten minutes into the book, I felt like hitting the eject button. It was not easy to hear someone retelling her rape in such detail: the violation, the assault, the humiliation. But then I thought, if the author has the courage to tell it, the least I can do is to have the courage to hear it. So I did. (Also attribute it to the fact that I don’t have another audio book in my car to switch to.)
I am glad I did. It certainly wasn’t a pleasant summer read, but I learned a lot from her story. It both angered and saddened me that, after the rape, she had to be the strong one to keep her mother from having a panic attacker, to comfort her sister, to try to make her father understand how she could let it happen if the rapist did not have the knife during the rape. You will think, wow, I couldn’t believe her family couldn’t be more supportive. Then you realize that there are many rape victims who have it worse. If her family, an educated, loving one, reacted like this, how it may be like for some less fortunate victims.
