Reviews with content warning for Rape - Exit, Pursued by a Bear

Of all the books I've read recently, this one handles the topic of sexual assult with the most care and with the right tone. The friendships are real and Hermione has a great support system behind her throughout the book and her journey through recovery.

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daralexandria's review

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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drizzlybear's review

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challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

really really love how this story is about trauma but it mostly just focuses on all the support networks hermione has and how everyone is kind

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nytephoenyx's review

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challenging dark emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

For such a short book, Exit, Pursued By a Bear packs a powerful punch.

Hermione Winters is a senior and a competitive cheerleader. This year is the last cheerleading camp she’ll go to – she’s determined to make it her best. And it’s all going pretty well, until she’s drugged at a party and raped. The story subsequently follows with her trying to come to terms with this new version of herself and trying to catch the rapist.

Exit, Pursued By a Bear is brings in strong themes of friendship, support, and healing. Hermione’s journey is fairly clean (though I wouldn’t say easy, because recovering from that kind of trauma is never easy). She has an excellent support system – friends who have her back, parents who care about her, professionals who listen and help. In an afterword, Johnson relays why she chose to give Hermione such a strong support system and that very few victims of sexual assault are so lucky (there’s also information about resources for survivors in Canada and the US).

Much of Hermione’s story is told through her cheerleading, and it’s done respectfully. There are stereotypes around cheerleaders and I feel like Johnson avoided them all. She talks about their athleticism and coordination and strength. Not once is Hermione or any of her teammates sexualized, which in a book with this theme I think is really important. There is almost no discussion about their bodies, not superfluous language at all. Hermione, Polly, Mallory, and the others are all described as powerful, driven women and I thought it was both wonderful and important to the story.

This is not an easy read. Exit, Pursued By a Bear is written very directly and there’s no language softening the themes. This book is a bit of a smack across the face to the fact that similar situations to this happen to women all the time. I highly recommend caution in picking this one up if you have triggers. While there are not a lot of specific details, there are scenes that are difficult to read, and the book is entirely based around the incident. If you think you can read it, though, it is a strong story about a young woman overcoming a heinous crime and regaining control over her life.

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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dark hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR is about a girl reclaiming her agency, and the friendships which help her before and after; a story about a rape which does not make the reader watch violation. The framing and emphasis centers the MC in a way that acknowledges that she was victimized, and is about what happens after, but is never interested in seeing her suffer. It conveys the raw and sometimes tumultuous emotions of the MC, usually in ways that show either her messy initial reaction and then revisit the thoughts again when she’s able to talk to someone and get help. I never felt like a voyeur to her pain, more like someone who is hearing her reflections on this experience later. It’s about her senior year: the last year of high school, her last year as a cheerleader, and her complicated emotions about having this transitional phase in her life made stranger by this thing that was done to her.

There are a lot of moments I loved in this book, but I think one of the most important ones is the prologue, a snapshot of a small moment which actually takes place midway through the book, but frames the early events so that the reader has an idea from the start that the MC will be okay. That prologue told me that the author was writing this with care. This let me trust that this would be handled well, and I was not disappointed. The MC's relationship with her best friend was a steadying touch in bleak moments, and though I think the prologue is important, the scenes with Polly were the emotional touchstone keeping everything together even as things changed.

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