Finished Rape Girl by Alina Klein. I received a copy from the publisher on Netgalley.
Valerie isn’t one of the most popular girls but she’s not an outcast, either. One weekend when her mom’s out of town, she throws a party hoping that her crush will show up. He does. And the next morning when she’s alone, he comes back. And he doesn’t listen when she says no.
So she goes to the police and tells them everything.
And that’s when everything changes. Most of her classmates take Adam’s side. They say that she’s a slut and a liar. Even her best friend is on Adam’s side.
This is a hard book to read, obviously. We’re all told as children that if we do the right thing, we’ll be rewarded. Except that didn’t happen in Valerie’s case. In fact, the exact opposite happened. Valerie is essentially tortured at school over and over again for telling the truth.
She’s taken out of the math class she shares with Adam and a ton of boys—including some she’s never even met—say that they’ve had sex with her, too. And, as I said before, she loses her best friend.
But she gets new friends.
And while her initial instinct is to stay at home and hide, eventually Valerie realizes that she’s not the one who should be hiding.
So, like I said, not an easy book to read. This is not light reading or in any way fun. But it’s an important book.
Highly recommended.
