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A review by books_plants_hikes
Lucky by Alice Sebold
3.0
This was a difficult book for me to begin. I realized as I read the book that I was like many of the characters Alice encounters. As soon as I read "rape" I couldn't set the book down fast enough. As if getting it out of my hands would mean these experiences didn't exist. My friend Angelina talked me into picking it back up, I'm glad she did because if someone is brave enough to record such a difficult experience we should all as women be brave enough to read those words.
I do wish Sebold had ended the book after chapter eleven. The ending really discredits the work of the rest of the book in my opinion. The message after chapter 11 seems to be that you can heal after rape and renew yourself into something better than you were before if you choose too.
The ending beyond that seems to be that it's okay too use rape as an excuse for a disheveled life where drug use, alcoholism, multi grimy partners, and self loathing are acceptable ways to deal with your pain. To me that was an awful way to the end the story of a clearly beautiful life.
Finally, it was terribly awful to peak into a world where convictions for rape were not the norm. Where in the 1980's, just over 30 years ago, women weren't treated the way they are today. They were poorly questioned, rarely believed, and encouraged not to prosecute their attackers. Rape was looked at differently and when women did prosecute courts tried to find every reason that it could be the woman's fault. Perhaps we are not entirely free of that mindset today. However, we are farther from that belief than ever before.
I respect Alice Sebold immensely for making the choices she did both for herself and women today. She was an original feminist.
I do wish Sebold had ended the book after chapter eleven. The ending really discredits the work of the rest of the book in my opinion. The message after chapter 11 seems to be that you can heal after rape and renew yourself into something better than you were before if you choose too.
The ending beyond that seems to be that it's okay too use rape as an excuse for a disheveled life where drug use, alcoholism, multi grimy partners, and self loathing are acceptable ways to deal with your pain. To me that was an awful way to the end the story of a clearly beautiful life.
Finally, it was terribly awful to peak into a world where convictions for rape were not the norm. Where in the 1980's, just over 30 years ago, women weren't treated the way they are today. They were poorly questioned, rarely believed, and encouraged not to prosecute their attackers. Rape was looked at differently and when women did prosecute courts tried to find every reason that it could be the woman's fault. Perhaps we are not entirely free of that mindset today. However, we are farther from that belief than ever before.
I respect Alice Sebold immensely for making the choices she did both for herself and women today. She was an original feminist.