Maria Padian
Författare till Out of Nowhere
Verk av Maria Padian
Taggad
Allmänna fakta
- Vedertaget namn
- Padian, Maria
- Födelsedag
- 1962
- Kön
- female
- Nationalitet
- USA
- Födelseort
- New York, New York, USA
- Bostadsorter
- Allendale, New Jersey, USA
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Washington, D.C., USA
Brunswick, Maine, USA - Utbildning
- Middlebury College
University of Virginia (MA)
Medlemmar
Recensioner
Priser
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Statistik
- Verk
- 5
- Medlemmar
- 502
- Popularitet
- #49,320
- Betyg
- 3.8
- Recensioner
- 26
- ISBN
- 31
- Språk
- 1
So, I was very interested to read a book about something as important as sexual assault on college campus. I don't have all my facts in line, but it's something like a quarter of women will be victims of sexual assault during their college career. And with the whole Brock Turner injustice happening recently.... well, books like this couldn't be more important.
Having said all that, this book gave me such odd feelings. I could not put the book down, but I felt so complicated about the characters. I felt like almost every single one was equally sympathetic and aggravating. I don't have to like the characters to like the book, which was sort of the case here, but it felt weird to feel so many different feelings towards the victim. The bottom line is no one should have to go through what Jenny went through, whether I love her as a person or not. That in of itself made me feel icky because I WANTED to love her as a person and I just couldn't... which is kind of messed up of me, but it was how I was feeling!! (See what I mean?? That's totally icky)
I kind of think that this book became more interesting because of the frustrating characters.
Haley was put in this really uncomfortable position of being Jenny's sole confidant when they weren't really friends at all beforehand. But she didn't just roll with it and came off as selfish at times.
Richard (the guy who lives with Jenny's rapist) was shown as the ignorant guy-- always saying offensive stuff, but not really knowing why it was offensive.
And then there's Carrie. She's this uber-feminist woman who Richard has a fling with pre-Jenny situation, but ultimately she became almost the villain of this book because of how harsh she was.
If I could change anything about this book it would definitely be Carrie. Her portrayal to me just enforces femi-nazi stereotypes that feminists are man-hating and unlikable and hard-headed. I also am a tad bit over the over-sensitivity of our society, and this book spotlights it. There's a lot of freaking out about things that Richard says that, yes most of it was super-dumb and inappropriate. Maybe I'm crazy, but to stop and have like a LESSON over it just feels a little contrived. People say dumb stuff all the time, and I just CAN'T stop every time it happens and have a reaction to it.
The hardest part for me was just realizing how hard it was for Jenny to prove her case. There was alcohol involved, the attack wasn't videotaped or photographed, and her grasp of all the details were foggy. BUT SO WHAT!!! It supremely sucks that we live in a culture that it has to be a perfect case for a rape victim to be believed and get justice.
OVERALL: Really great, unputdownable book that made me feel really conflicted about every single character. I loved the way the process was shown and it was super sad to see how hard it is for victims to just be believed. I think we need a lot more books like this!! It made me feel uncomfortable and I'm pretty sure that was the whole point.
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