Books like Consent

This book by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey is another book I couldn’t put down.

Two dogged journalists publish a report about Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuses that helps launch the #metoo movement. Not only were the journalists brave in their pursuit of the truth surrounding powerful men, the voices of all the women who came forward when they were subject to danger for doing so were a testament to the power of true stories and women coming together for a greater good.

In trauma studies, Judith Herman is the GOAT. Truth and Repair follows up Herman’s landmark book Trauma and Recovery and cements her contribution to the study of sexual violence, healing, and justice.

Although The Body Keeps the Score became a surprise pandemic bestseller, it is Truth and Repair that updates trauma theory and clinical practice for the #MeToo era. Herman argues that justice is part of the healing process for individuals and communities.

Her feminist perspective on the real-world factors that enable sexual abuse is clear eyed and her prescription for how to connect healing and justice is ultimately hopeful.

Tarana Burke is the woman behind the “me too” movement and Unbound is her story.

In 2017 when #MeToo shattered the myth that sexual violence is rare, Burke had already been building the movement for over a decade. Unbound traces her growth as a community organizer and the founder of a survivor movement rooted in empathy.

Although one goal of the book is to correct the record of the “me too” origin story, Burke is more interested in a larger notion of justice. She writes movingly of the pervasiveness and damage of sexual violence, including in her own life, and the promise of healing contained in the words “me too.”

Michelle Bowdler’s piercing question pinpoints the hypocrisy of laws that often favor abusers rather than those they harm. This happens so routinely that survivors speak of two assaults: the abuse itself and the revictimization as they seek justice.

Bowdler was the victim of a serial rapist in Boston whose break-ins and assaults terrorized the city. After Bowdler reported the attack, she was assured that the crime would be investigated. Nothing of the sort happened. Is Rape a Crime? pulls back the curtain on how sexual assault victims are treated by law enforcement and concludes with a powerful demand for change.

I resonated with this memoir of teen grooming because I saw myself in it and I felt less alone, like I had found a kindred spirit. Many details of our stories are different, but the core wounding from being taken advantage of by an older more powerful man felt the same.

The author and I both experienced the thrill of being chosen and the deep sadness resulting from this kind of betrayal, and we both found a way to heal, even though the scars remain.

In this memoir, we meet Kim as a teen athlete and an Olympic-bound swimmer. The book shows the intense training environment of young athletes of this caliber experience, and as I read it, I was filled with both admiration and a deep uneasiness.

She’s so vulnerable to her esteemed coach, as I was to my teacher. Swimming was her life, and her coach held her future in his hands. When the inevitable grooming and seduction began, my heart sank further in outrage and sorrow. Like me, Kim finds her way out, but as with all young girls groomed and betrayed, it is not easy.

This memoir depicts not only the manipulative and abusive relationship the author had with her coach but includes the excruciating experience of confronting her later in life and going through the process of prosecution.

As a reader, I felt Kristen’s confusion and despair as a young teenager, as well as her mixed emotions as she pursued justice and closure for years of suffering. My story never involved confrontation or litigation because my teacher passed away before I understood how he had hurt me. I ached for how hard this was for Kim and rejoiced at her eventual liberation.

Like me, Wendy’s parents weren’t paying close enough attention to her during her formative teenage years. This makes us vulnerable and, therefore, good targets for teachers or coaches to prey upon our availability and eagerness to be seen. This combination of parental absence and the betrayal of innocence and trust by an adult ‘friend’ who seduces us into a sexual relationship has a huge impact on our later years.

In Wendy’s case, their shared love of writing makes their relationship more complex. In my case, the 1970s was a time of ‘free love’ and sexual liberation, which added further confusion to my limited understanding of right and wrong.

We don’t usually hear about the toll that incarcerating a mother, a daughter, or a sister takes on the family left behind. Michelle Horton’s beautiful memoir gives us access to that experience. Horton’s life was upended after her sister, Nicole Addimando, was arrested for killing her partner in self-defense.

Horton documents the next several years of their lives as she, her parents, her son, and Nicole’s children (who Horton took guardianship of while Nicole was in prison) navigated Nicole’s arrest, trial, and imprisonment. Illustrative in the mechanics of putting together a successful survivor-defense campaign, it is heartbreaking and infuriating in its description of the toll Nicole’s prosecution took on the family.

I loved this book because it transported me to the sun-soaked island of Barbados—but not only the glossy image from travel magazines, which I’ve visited before like many other tourists.

It offers an unflinching peek at the authentic, sometimes tragic, side of paradise where the locals live and work. Following the intertwined lives of a grieving young mother, her violent husband, a wealthy widow, and a conflicted gigolo, this novel reveals the darkness that festers within the places we call home.