CW: Sexual Assault 

The book I spent the most time thinking about from last year was Know My Name by Chanel Miller. She is such a powerful writer, and her ability to communicate her experience of taking her rapist to court really helped me to understand how challenging it is. If you haven’t read that book, please do so if you feel up to it. 

Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was A Girl was a great memoir to read as a follow up. Jeannie Vanasco interviews her rapist, to try and determine why he did it, and also to try and reconcile whether someone can be a good person who did a bad thing. The book is structured around these conversations, and the book is almost a memoir of the process of writing the book itself. 

Jeannie Vanasco discusses how her book will be received, and whether she should be giving a voice to her rapist at all. She discusses how the political left discusses rape and sexual assault, in comparison to other crimes. I found this to be a very interesting conversation, and made me question some of my beliefs. 

If you are in a position where you feel comfortable reading about sexual assault, I would recommend giving this one a go. It is very self-aware, and gives the reader a lot to think about.