Expected Publication: November 3rd 2016 by Hot Key Books
Source: I received a free copy of this book from Hot Key Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Goodreads description: A raw, powerful, moving tale about a girl attempting to deal with the aftermath of a sexual attack.
My name is Stacey Woods and I was raped.
Stacey is the victim of a terrible sexual attack. She does not feel able to go to the police, or talk about it to anybody other than her best friend, Patrice. Patrice, outraged, when she cannot persuade her to go to the police, encourages Stacey to write everything down. This is Stacey's story.
A tautly told and important book, perfect for readers of Asking for It by Louise O'Neill.
As soon as I read the synopsis I was interested in reading this story. The topic of rape and sexual assault is such an important one that more people need to be made aware of. This is a shorter book so it was a very quick read for me. The pacing was excellent and the story pulled me in to the point where I didn’t want to put the book down.
However, I did find it difficult to relate to the characters, which is where the book was a little bit of a let down for me. While I sympathised with her situation, I just found Stacey to be very unlikeable. She acted childish and immature at times, had a tendency to overreact in certain situations and showed extremely poor judgement in trusting a complete stranger!
I also have mixed feelings about the ending. While a part of me thought that it was probably a fitting ending to this short book, a bigger part of me was left feeling unsatisfied at the end because I still had so many unanswered questions about how things ultimately turned out.
Despite that though, I still feel like it is an important book to read, particularly for teenagers because it depicts just how easily young girls can find themselves in a vulnerable position where they could end up a victim of sexual assault. The aftermath of the assault also felt like a very accurate portrayal of the victim’s feelings of shame, self blame, self doubt over whether it was her fault or not and why so many rapes go unreported to the police.
Overall, I gave this book a 3 out of 5 rating. While I had perhaps been expecting a little bit more from this book, I thought that the author did a great job in giving a realistic portrayal of the difficult but important subject of sexual assault, particularly within the shorter page length.
