A review by beckyyreadss
Know My Name: The Survivor of the Stanford Sexual Assault Case Tells Her Story by Chanel Miller

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad slow-paced

5.0

I wanted to read this book because just like everyone else when Emily Doe’s statement was released in 2016 and went viral, we were all angry, upset, annoyed. I was sixteen and was shocked as I didn’t know a lot about the Justice System. Six years later, we are used to hearing these stories and I get more and more angry and upset when I see them in the news. When it was announced that Chanel Miller had wrote a book based on the experience, I was immediately wanting to read it. This book is heart breaking and powerful. 

Chanel Miller was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. The guy who had sexual assaulted her on Stanford University whilst she was unconscious has been sentenced to just six months in county jail. The judge gave him a lighter sentence because he didn’t want to ruin his life. Chanel’s victim impact statement was posted on Buzzfeed, where it instantly went viral which was viewed by eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress: it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousand of people wrote to say that she had given them courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time. Chanel is using this book to reclaim her identity and to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. It was the perfect case, in many ways – there were eyewitnesses, the guy ran away and physical evidence was immediately secured. But her struggles with isolation and shame during the aftermath and the trial reveal the oppression victims face in even the best—case scenarios. Her story highlights a culture biased to protect perpetrators, indicts a criminal justice system designed to fail the most vulnerable, and, ultimately, shines with the courage required to move through suffering and live a full and beautiful life. Know My Name will forever transform the way we think about sexual assault, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable and speaking truth to the tumultuous reality of healing. It also introduces reader to an extraordinary writer that is Chanel Miller. 

Hearing this case, from the beginning of Chanel being at home and wanting to spend time with her sister, to going to the party, to being at the hospital, to the trial and the waiting and the never-ending anxiety was heart breaking as a reader, never mind having to live through it. She was so powerful and how she managed to stay kind and forgiving during all of this, I will never know. I am so angry at the Justice System, at the judge, at the guy that assaulted her, at anyone who has written anything negative about Chanel or Emily doe. I would have loved to hear from the people in her life during his book – like Lucas, her parents, her sister, the guys who saved her that night. 

I do not have anything negative to say about this memoir, I think everyone should read this book in high school, to know what it feels like to go through that and to bring aware of how damaging and soul crushing it can be to be a victim of sexual assault. I love how Chanel also bring light to cat-calling and how that is considered normal. I will read anything Chanel writes and I hope that she will be able to write the children’s book she always wanted to. 
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