Author: Maria Stoian
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Publication Date: November 21, 2015
***I received a digital version of this graphic short story collection from netgalley.com and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Description:
'I was fifteen.' 'I never saw him again.' 'They chanted after me, 'Oscar the Grouch, Oscar the Grouch.' Bringing together the voices of males and females of all ages, the stories in this collective graphic memoir reflect real life experiences of sexual abuse, violence and harassment. Each experience is brought to life by Maria Stoian's exceptional artwork. Her unique and varied styles powerfully reflect the tone and mood of the different stories and in just a few pages express the complex emotions felt by victims of sexual abuse. Covering acts such as sexual violence, public sexual harassment, domestic abuse and child abuse, this is a reminder for survivors that they are not alone and a call for all of us to take action. The stories clearly show that assault of any type is not an honour bestowed on anyone. It is not a compliment.
My Review:
I went into this story with the idea that it wouldn't contain as heavy of material as it did.
The art work is simple and I thought maybe that would translate into the subject matter even though I had read the description for the read.
I have never read a graphic novel quite like this. It is made of of numerous short accounts of instances of sexual abuse. This abuse can range from rape, to inappropriate touching, to physical violence. The accounts are short and often to the point and were compiled from anonymous online submissions. Some were more powerful than others but as a woman in her mid-20s I was shocked at how many of these accounts I related to.
From being touched on public transportation to maybe getting a little too tipsy and waking up in a gray area you weren't comfortable with this definitely made it difficult at times to continue reading. These were even accounts from long, committed relationships that you just didn't see or realize the abuse until it had been going on for so long.
One thing that resonated with me was the difference in the type of victims. Some felt they were maybe asking for this to happen; i.e. they were on a date and were suggested in speech or clothing, they had been drinking, etc. and that maybe they were to blame for the assault. Other victims took back their power and stood up for themselves once things got to the level and confronted their attacker and spoke about the power to take back their lives and feelings to be stronger.
Overall, I wasn't a huge fan of the art style but the content more than made up for it and I would suggest reading this to everyone and to maybe spreading it to high schools or colleges so they know that the things that might be happening to them are happening to others and that they can find the power and strength to stand up against this abuse.
My Star Rating:
4 out 5 stars
Title: Asking For It
Author: Louise O'Neill
Publisher: Quercus
Publication Date: September 3, 2015
Description:
It's the beginning of the summer in a small town in Ireland. Emma O'Donovan is eighteen years old, beautiful, happy, confident. One night, there's a party. Everyone is there. All eyes are on Emma.
The next morning, she wakes on the front porch of her house. She can't remember what happened, she doesn't know how she got there. She doesn't know why she's in pain. But everyone else does.
Photographs taken at the party show, in explicit detail, what happened to Emma that night. But sometimes people don't want to believe what is right in front of them, especially when the truth concerns the town's heroes...
The next morning, she wakes on the front porch of her house. She can't remember what happened, she doesn't know how she got there. She doesn't know why she's in pain. But everyone else does.
Photographs taken at the party show, in explicit detail, what happened to Emma that night. But sometimes people don't want to believe what is right in front of them, especially when the truth concerns the town's heroes...
My Review:
I have heard many reviews of Louise O'Neill's writing saying that she "writes with a scalpel" and I had always hated that cliche way of saying that someone cuts to the truth and exposes issues in a way like any other person. And that is really what O'Neill does. She takes a prevalent social issue and throws it in your face and says "This is it. This is how it is. Deal with it. And do something to change it."
O'Neill is a relatively new novelist and I had the privilege of reviewing her first novel, "Only Ever Yours," for netgalley.com at the beginning of the year. It talked about similar themes as this story. Slut shaming, women's roles both sexual and otherwise in life, and was set in a dystopian future. It was raw and real and I loved it but it was absolutely nothing compared to this novel.
This story is about a high school girl getting close to graduation and her group of friends going out to a party one night. In the course of an evening you get an entire background on the experiences that these characters have had including one of the girls being raped and Emmie, out main character, telling her to cover it up because she wouldn't be popular if she told on the boy who did it.
After taking a series of drugs t this same party Emmie finds herself waking up on her porch the next day with no knowledge of what happened, how she got there or how the party ended until pictures surface on Facebook of her as the victim of a brutal and cruel sexual assault.
The rest of the story is difficult to put into words. It chronicles the year following the attack where she openly accuses her 4 attackers and then the regret of doing that and the shame she feels from the incident.
This was absolutely heartbreaking to read. I had to put the book down several times and walk away, but even that didn't help because the imagines painted with the words in this book of what happened to her and the feelings that literally lifted off the page still come to mind over a week later.
This isn't some dystopian future where that could never happen. This story is addressing real issues affecting youth today and victim blaming that often takes place when something like sexual assault happens.
A lot of times they will note that the victim was drunk, that they were dressed in revealing clothing, that they had a history of promiscuous sexual activity so maybe it wasn't rape, but actually the fault of the victim.
Just because in the past you have had sex does not give anyone the right to have sex with you or touch you without you permission just because someone else had with your permission.
The passages that chronicled the victim's self hate and loathing and how she felt when seeing the pictures of what had happened to her and never blaming the boys only blaming herself were impossible to get out of my mind.
I feel like things like this should be required reading for young men and women everywhere and that this should open a dialog about what sexual abuse is and why it isn't okay, something people don't talk about enough these days.
My Star Rating:
5 out of 5
Recommendations based on these reads:
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