A review by wardenred
Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl by Jeannie Vanasco

challenging sad

3.75

Why wouldn’t you have Mark arrested? I mean, it makes sense why you wouldn’t. But how would you articulate your reasons?

This was a difficult book for me to get through for many reasons, not least of them being, of course, the subject matter. The premise is this: the author sits down to talk to a former friend who sexually assaulted her when they were younger. The execution involves a lot of meandering in circles, questioning the same things over and over, and, in a rather meta way, meditating on the process of writing this very book. It often felt like reading a highly personal diary, especially what with the short, often disjointed chapters and the lack of proper punctuation in dialogue.

On one hand, I feel this is such an important and relatable exploration of a sensitive subject matter.  There are these awful things that can happen to you, and you’re expected to feel a certain way about them, but reality can be way more complex and nuanced, and it can take a lot of soul-searching and courage to call things what you are, to admit your own feelings, to begin to figure out how to cope. On the other hand, I felt increasingly uncomfortable as I read by how close the author kept coming to… idk, almost taking the perpetrator’s side? She sets out to talk to him because she wants to understand the reasons behind his crime, but it keeps feeling like she’s searching for excuses instead. All those transcripts of their conversations were often difficult for me to read because of how apologetic and oh-so-grateful for his agreement to talk to her she was, and how she kept being so reassuring and basically trying to shield the guy from too much guilt and shame.

It did help that she approached it with a lot of self-awareness, including interactions with her loved ones calling her out on it. But at the same time, when she just kept doing the same thing, I had to kind of wonder, whose side was she on? Why not her own? And like, I don’t want to discard the fact that stuff like this can be a valid part of processing a fraught, complex, messy, painful situation. Trying to shoulder the responsibility for something another person did to you is often a way to assume control. But it was just a thing that happened over and over, that apologetic gratitude extended toward someone she’s still having nightmares about, that kept making me so incredibly frustrated.

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