Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl: A Memoir
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A New York Times Editors’ Choice and Best Book of the Year at TIME, Esquire, Amazon, Kirkus, and Electric Literature Jeannie Vanasco has had the same nightmare since she was a teenager. It is always about him: one of her closest high school friends, a boy named Mark. A boy who raped her. When her nightmares worsen, Jeannie decides—after fourteen years of silence—to reach out to Mark. He agrees to talk on the record and meet in person. Jeannie details her friendship with Mark before and after the assault, asking the brave and urgent question: Is it possible for a good person to commit a terrible act? Jeannie interviews Mark, exploring how rape has impacted his life as well as her own. Unflinching and courageous, Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl is part memoir, part true crime record, and part testament to the strength of female friendships—a recounting and reckoning that will inspire us to ask harder questions, push towards deeper understanding, and continue a necessary and long overdue conversation.
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“I'm compelled, she says, by your conflicted relationship with power. You want it, through the narrative, but you keep disavowing it. I'm just trying to acknowledge that there's an imbalance. This all feels very gendered to me, she says.”
In this book, Vanasco interviews a former friend who raped her in college. This is such a nuanced, powerful, timely, and important book, and I am so impressed with Vanasco's honesty and transparency, even when it doesn't paint her in the best light. Highly recommend.
This was an interesting and unique perspective to add to the many voices of the #MeToo movement - particularly in its honest discussion of the doubt and ambivalence that can come when processing a sexual assault. Worth the read.
