Scan barcode
jess_mango's review
4.0
"Not that Bad" is something women often hear from others or tell themselves after a sexual assault...as in "it's not that bad, he could've hurt you worse".
In this anthology of essays from a variety of writers, we hear many different voices telling of their own personal experiences with sexual assault and rape.
This was a harrowing but important read. Especially in the post-#metoo era, people need more awareness of the frequency and commonness of sexual assault. It is important that people share their stories.
This book counts towards the Reading Women 2020 Challenge Task #8: an anthology by multiple authors
In this anthology of essays from a variety of writers, we hear many different voices telling of their own personal experiences with sexual assault and rape.
This was a harrowing but important read. Especially in the post-#metoo era, people need more awareness of the frequency and commonness of sexual assault. It is important that people share their stories.
This book counts towards the Reading Women 2020 Challenge Task #8: an anthology by multiple authors
tildahlia's review
3.0
As with many books I started pre-pandemic lockdown, I just couldn't quite engage fully with the depth and devastation of this book and so perhaps, my rating is unfair. It is incredibly confronting reading these very personal accounts of sexual assault and harassment and I just couldn't quite wrap my head around them. I had started the audiobook but intend to revisit the hard copy at a later stage.
emmalemonnz's review
5.0
So many things. So many feelings.
Sometimes I feel like reading accounts like these maybe isn't good for me. It's certainly not fun or enjoyable. But it's important. I feel like I'm being cradled within the loving embrace of all the Angry Women and I am being told that I'm okay.
Bearing witness to the personal truth on these pages is important. For me. For the writers. For the women and girls and boys and men and enbies and children and adults who have not yet been able to face what was done to them.
So many of these pieces quoted other works and writers, and that made me realise that yeah, reading this stuff helps. Especially when we're abused as children, but probably as adults too, because we don't have the words to express how we feel or what we think or even just what actually happened. By hearing other people's accounts, and thoughts, we can cobble together our own.
So much in this book speaks to me. To my experiences. To my reactions. To my existence. I can feel the ideas growing roots within me.
Someone asked me, "Doesn't it just retraumatise you, to read about that stuff?" I didn't have an answer at the time, but now I do. No. It's not retraumatising to read things people like me have written. What's retraumatising is the rape culture all around us. Seeing what goes uncommented on. Hearing kids and family members and people in power say things that reinforce the message that my body is not really mine, and that boys will be boys, and men deserve what they desire, and women and girls exist for men's pleasure, and people outside of that man/woman binary aren't worthy of existence or self determination or safety. Retraumatisation is every tv show or film or song or book that presents violence as entertainment. Retraumatisation is just last week sitting in my own living room listening to my own father say that "people can't expect to wear whatever they want and not expect the natural consequences" and having to pretend that I'm not screaming inside, remembering every time he commented on the appearance of my 12 year old / 13 year old / 14 year old friends. Having to pretend he was making a reasonable argument because the alternative was to lose every strand of stability I work so hard to weave together whenever my parents visit. The alternative is me in tears, shaking, sweating, inconsolable, hopeless.
This book gives me a space to set my anger down for a moment. This book makes me feel understood. This book says my feelings are real and okay.
Sometimes I feel like reading accounts like these maybe isn't good for me. It's certainly not fun or enjoyable. But it's important. I feel like I'm being cradled within the loving embrace of all the Angry Women and I am being told that I'm okay.
Bearing witness to the personal truth on these pages is important. For me. For the writers. For the women and girls and boys and men and enbies and children and adults who have not yet been able to face what was done to them.
So many of these pieces quoted other works and writers, and that made me realise that yeah, reading this stuff helps. Especially when we're abused as children, but probably as adults too, because we don't have the words to express how we feel or what we think or even just what actually happened. By hearing other people's accounts, and thoughts, we can cobble together our own.
So much in this book speaks to me. To my experiences. To my reactions. To my existence. I can feel the ideas growing roots within me.
Someone asked me, "Doesn't it just retraumatise you, to read about that stuff?" I didn't have an answer at the time, but now I do. No. It's not retraumatising to read things people like me have written. What's retraumatising is the rape culture all around us. Seeing what goes uncommented on. Hearing kids and family members and people in power say things that reinforce the message that my body is not really mine, and that boys will be boys, and men deserve what they desire, and women and girls exist for men's pleasure, and people outside of that man/woman binary aren't worthy of existence or self determination or safety. Retraumatisation is every tv show or film or song or book that presents violence as entertainment. Retraumatisation is just last week sitting in my own living room listening to my own father say that "people can't expect to wear whatever they want and not expect the natural consequences" and having to pretend that I'm not screaming inside, remembering every time he commented on the appearance of my 12 year old / 13 year old / 14 year old friends. Having to pretend he was making a reasonable argument because the alternative was to lose every strand of stability I work so hard to weave together whenever my parents visit. The alternative is me in tears, shaking, sweating, inconsolable, hopeless.
This book gives me a space to set my anger down for a moment. This book makes me feel understood. This book says my feelings are real and okay.
mmejiaaar's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.0
this collection of voices and experiences was so much more than what i expected. hard and crude, but so filled with hope and growth. its an important book, it gives voice to the lives of people that, under the patriarchal structure, would normally go ignored. its riddled with paradoxes and the reader does not rid itself of them: how to go about your day after reading this? where do you put this knowledge? how do you keep on living knowing what this essays have told you? and yet i would rather live in this scenario, than to ask the authors to be silent. i hope that everyone that has gone through an experience like the ones described in the book sees that there is a future for them, that not everything was taken again from them in that moment, that they are still here and still able to make something beautiful with their lives.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Sexism, Rape, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault
deliriousreader's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
dilchh's review
5.0
Didn't expect to read an anthology about rape would be "exciting" (for lack of better words). I was prepared to end up feeling scared if not disturbed from reading the stories in the book; I was definitely did not expect to feel empowered and felt represented and seen. This was such a great read, well written and edited. It is not a book exclusively those who have unfortunately experienced rape or sexual assault, it is a book exclusively for everyone to understand the severity of rape culture in modern society, to be aware, and to be well educate us to be better.