What I’ve read and would recommend..
A book you might want to read if you can relate to the subject… I found it powerful, shocking and most of all, empathetic.
In a memoir hailed for its searing candor and wit, Alice Sebold reveals how her life was utterly transformed when, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus. What propels this chronicle of her recovery is Sebold’s indomitable spirit - as she struggles for understanding (“After telling the hard facts to anyone, from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes”); as her dazed family and friends sometimes bungle their efforts to provide comfort and support; and as, ultimately, she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker’s arrest and conviction. In a narrative by turns disturbing, thrilling, and inspiring, Alice Sebold illuminates the experience of trauma victims even as she imparts wisdom profoundly hard-won. “You save yourself or you remain unsaved.”
Sebold has stated that her reason for writing the book was to bring more awareness to rape. “One of the reasons why I wrote it is because tons of people have had similar stories, not exactly the same but similar, and I want the word ‘rape’ to be used easily in conversation. My desire would be that somehow my writing would take a little bit of the taboo or the weirdness of using that word away. No one work is going to accomplish the years of work that need to be done, but it can help.”
The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker: A BOOK YOU NEED TO READ
The book provides strategies to help readers avoid trauma and violence by teaching them various warning signs and precursors to violence.
De Becker’s book presents a paradox of genre: described as a “how-to book that reads like a thriller.”[1] By finding patterns in stories of violence and abuse, de Becker seeks to highlight the inherent predictability of violence. The book explores various settings where violence may be found—the workplace, the home, the school, dating—and describes what de Becker calls pre-incident indicators (PINS). When properly identified these PINS can help violence be avoided; when violence is unavoidable, de Becker claims it can usually be predicted and better understood.
I own this book and it honestly helped me to identify red flags and avoid some potentially scary situations. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that once you read this book you’re immune to danger, but it will definitely sharpen your senses as a woman.
