This is not supposed to be a love story, but Vanessa doesn’t know that. And throughout the book we see the heartbreaking and impossible aftermath of having to deal with childhood sexual trauma. And coming into the difficult realization that what she remembers and what she has told herself to romanticize about her life, might have actually been abusive and unsolicited.
This is a really dark, devastatingly gripping and depressing – yet compassionate story. And such an important novel as well, for many different reasons. Although really uncomfortable to read at times, it was perfectly written. Vanessa’s thoughts and experiences were really vivid, although blurry and gaslighted at times, most of the time by her own self. We got to really understand and root for her to realize what had happened to her life, rooted for her to be on her own side.
There are several reasons why I think it is important to read this book:
- It sheds a light on how traumas don’t have to be the same to affect someone and to get taken seriously – she singlehandedly explained the whole concept of individual trauma or complex trauma with the words “it was enough to wreck me”. Meaning that every experience deserves not only to be taken seriously, but to be put on a healing and understanding path. We don’t choose how much something is going to affects us, we just have to learn how to understand and create an ideal surrounding for us and our minds.
- The complexity of consent and how little room it leaves for people to explore, to be curious or to change their minds. It is dangerous to assume that the word consent is reduced to a simple Yes or No explanation. The book Tomorrow Sex Wil be Good Again by Katherine Angel is a really good way to get a more in depth explanation on this subject and the different points of view one has to take into consideration before forming an opinion on this.
- How not everyone has to talk about what they have been through. And how people shouldn’t shame the ones that do choose to talk about it. How we all heal in different ways and need more time than others and that is okay.
- How it is true that journalists and the media are oftentimes only looking for momentum and click-bait titles instead of actually shedding a light on important current events.
- And maybe the saddest one, is how lonely girlhood becomes and how confusing womanhood is in the face of trauma. A similar book on troubling girlhood would be The Torn Skirt by Rebecca Godfrey.
Also similar story would be “Luckiest Girl Alive” which recently premiered on Netflix and is based on the book of the same name by Jessica Knoll. Which I also think did an amazing job at portraying a woman trying to figure out her own dark impulses after being shamed and taken advantage of in some areas of her life. And also reflecting on how freeing it is, when you don’t have to hide the shameful things anymore.
This book has trigger warnings. If you would like a little bit of a non-fiction further reading on these topics and how they may affect you, how to understand them and eventually heal them, I would recommend:
eclectic book talk 