Why read Consent?

Book cover of Consent: A Memoir of Stolen Adolescence

Book description

The devastating and powerful memoir from a French publisher who was abused by a famous writer from the age of thirteen

'Dazzling' New York Times 'A gut-punch of a memoir with prose that cuts like a knife' Kate Elizabeth Russell, author of My Dark Vanessa

Thirty years ago, Vanessa Springora…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Consent as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Liz Kinchen

Author

I like this book because it takes on the troubling theme of consent in the case where one person is an adolescent and the other a significantly older adult. I think in all cases of this power dynamic, the confusion a young person feels when she is eager for the love and attention of the older man blurs the meaning of consent for her.I know it did for me.

Yet the truth is a young teenager isn’t capable of consent; she is unaware of the price she’ll pay for what seems like love but is actually abuse. When the…

From Liz's list on The best memoirs about teenage abuse and healing.

Leigh Gilmore

Author

In the early days of #MeToo, a group of French women including iconic actress Catherine Deneuve co-signed an op-ed defending men’s “right to bother.”

They sought to halt #MeToo in its tracks, declaring it a puritanical American backlash against seduction rather than a global grassroots effort to end sexual abuse. As the op-ed showed, sexual predators in France had plenty of support.

Vanessa Springora’s memoir, Consent, exposed the culture of permissiveness and lack of legal recourse that allowed the widespread abuse of girls and women in France. Consent is an astonishing book. In elegant and spare prose, Springora dismantles…

From Leigh's list on The best books everyone should read to understand sexual violence, healing, and justice.