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arifairy's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment
rcmiller616's review against another edition
3.0
This book is very raw. Be wary of it if you are likely to be triggered by stories of rape and sexual trauma. I was never raped but experienced a lot of emotional abuse and sexual trauma in a relationship and had to frequently take breaks reading this book. Unfortunately I had no choice on reading it as it was for a class on gender and crime. I feel like the author still has a lot of pent up issues and quite honestly while reading it, although she would appeal to the contrary, I constantly felt like she had not dealt with them at all aside from publishing her story in a very dark memoir.
trinalee74's review against another edition
4.0
Alice Sebold describes the trauma in her life and how she overcame this. Her bravery in telling her story and bringing her attacker to justice can hopefully help other survivors of this crime.
nbailey24's review against another edition
4.0
This was such a great book, really intense and powerful. Sebold is a fantastic writer, she really pulls you into the story. Rape is a hard topic to write about but she does it by being straightforward and truthful. I couldn't put the book down.
madeleinephas's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
dovesfalling's review against another edition
5.0
Alice Sebold begins Lucky by telling us about her rape.
It's the kind of scene in a memoir that would normally have me flipping the pages quickly to escape it, much like how I can't watch the movie The Accused or read stories about the girl in India, on the bus. I think it's in Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson when the main character describes how men don't understand vaginas. How they aren't just a "hole" but rather, they have folds and creases. How delicate they are. How easily hurt.
But with Lucky, I did read about her rape. I bore witness to it through her writing, to the way he dragged her beneath a dark tunnel and it opened like a mouth. How a girl had been murdered there not long before (Sebold was "lucky" according to the police, not to have met with the same fate), how the rapist forced his fist inside of her until he tore her open and she bled. How he was pleased with the blood, because it made it easier for him to rape her.
Her descriptions are bare, to the point but almost lyrical in their horror. She hears people laughing and cat-calling them - they think they are a couple having sex. She is forced to perform oral sex, and he pees on her. She begs him for her life, begs him, thinks she will do anything to live. Anything and in that moment, she goes to the darkest place imaginable, darker than the tunnel, so dark that the only person she relates to - later - is the girl who was murdered in that place where she lay. She feels kinship with that girl, who went to that dark place too.
Sebold's writing is stunning, and this is one memoir I've never forgotten.
It should be required reading for young men, to understand that women aren't just "holes", that vaginas have folds, creases, that they are delicate. That they are so easily hurt. As Laurie Halse Anderson herself said, when asked what questions she gets that shock her:
"I have gotten one question repeatedly from young men. These are guys who liked the book, but they are honestly confused. They ask me why Melinda was so upset about being raped. The first dozen times I heard this, I was horrified. But I heard it over and over again. I realized that many young men are not being taught the impact that sexual assault has on a woman. They are inundated by sexual imagery in the media, and often come to the (incorrect) conclusion that having sex is not a big deal. This, no doubt, is why the number of sexual assaults is so high."
It's the kind of scene in a memoir that would normally have me flipping the pages quickly to escape it, much like how I can't watch the movie The Accused or read stories about the girl in India, on the bus. I think it's in Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson when the main character describes how men don't understand vaginas. How they aren't just a "hole" but rather, they have folds and creases. How delicate they are. How easily hurt.
But with Lucky, I did read about her rape. I bore witness to it through her writing, to the way he dragged her beneath a dark tunnel and it opened like a mouth. How a girl had been murdered there not long before (Sebold was "lucky" according to the police, not to have met with the same fate), how the rapist forced his fist inside of her until he tore her open and she bled. How he was pleased with the blood, because it made it easier for him to rape her.
Her descriptions are bare, to the point but almost lyrical in their horror. She hears people laughing and cat-calling them - they think they are a couple having sex. She is forced to perform oral sex, and he pees on her. She begs him for her life, begs him, thinks she will do anything to live. Anything and in that moment, she goes to the darkest place imaginable, darker than the tunnel, so dark that the only person she relates to - later - is the girl who was murdered in that place where she lay. She feels kinship with that girl, who went to that dark place too.
Sebold's writing is stunning, and this is one memoir I've never forgotten.
It should be required reading for young men, to understand that women aren't just "holes", that vaginas have folds, creases, that they are delicate. That they are so easily hurt. As Laurie Halse Anderson herself said, when asked what questions she gets that shock her:
"I have gotten one question repeatedly from young men. These are guys who liked the book, but they are honestly confused. They ask me why Melinda was so upset about being raped. The first dozen times I heard this, I was horrified. But I heard it over and over again. I realized that many young men are not being taught the impact that sexual assault has on a woman. They are inundated by sexual imagery in the media, and often come to the (incorrect) conclusion that having sex is not a big deal. This, no doubt, is why the number of sexual assaults is so high."
amybushmeyer's review against another edition
5.0
Marvelous. Heartfelt and important. If you read this book, and I think you should, be sure to get the updated version with the 2017 After word.