Book review - Whatever Gets You Through: Twelve Women on Life After Sexual Assault

Book review  

(WARNING that will subject you to good reads) 

Whatever Gets You Through: Twelve Women on Life After Sexual Assault

"When we are not fixed, not over it, still triggered, still feeling, still healing in our forties, fifties, sixties, and beyond we are not failing. We are remembering. We are learning from our survivorhood. We are moving from a model that gasps at our scars to one that wants to learn as much from them as possible. We are not an individual defect. We are a collective movement, a series of overlapping Survivor communities."

-Not over it, not fixed, and living a life worth living: a disability Justice vision of survivorhood
By
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
From
“Whatever Gets You Through
Twelve survivors on life after sexual assault”


This…was not what I expected. It was so much more than that.
It's going to be difficult to be objective and not get rather personal with this review, but that's to be expected given the subject matter. I was not expecting such a literary work but on that point it certainly delivered.

Even if you view this book purely as a work of literature, which would be a mistake, it's 10 out of 10 all the way. This is precisely what we should be doing with literature right now in my opinion - using art to have important and necessary conversations that we as a culture can't seem to have otherwise and ones that we -need- to have.

Of course if you feel a….draw to the subject matter you should definitely check it out this is easily one of the best things I've ever read and certainly in my top two or three of this year.

Okay personal stuff here. As a Survivor of multiple violations I found something in each of these women's stories that spoke to me directly it seemed. One of the great things about literature and using literature to talk about such things as rape is that it liberates the author to be able to tell the story however the hell they like. A great Triumph of what we nowadays call Creative nonfiction, and aside from the book's other merits, of which there are considerable number aside, it is an Exemplar of what creative non-fiction can do. Many of these are completely nonlinear narratives quite a few are entirely symbolic that all of them are powerful impactful and real.
And there is no way to miss what's being discussed.
Unlike what you might expect this is a very fast read and in terms of its pure writing quite engaging- enough so that I had to make myself read it in small doses, generally one section at a time, for my own well being.

Yes I'm aware of the subject matter but the writing itself is more than merely solid, it is exceptional and definitely told by people who understand the use and power of their Words

One of my favorite things about this book is it's rather clearly stated agenda. To completely collapse and ignore the standard cultural narrative surrounding these things and replace it with the only narrative that matters that of those who survived these experiences. In that it is quite political but my favorite kind of political that which seeks to unleash a truth upon the world and eradicate the lies that have come before.

To get into the specifics of each narrative would be both inappropriate and quite disrespectful the contents thereof should not be subject to such inanities such as literary criticism. Bluntly there is no way a simple synopses could do this work Justice
So I shall not attempt to do so instead I will simply urge you to read it if you have the wherewithal to do so.

Yes it's about surviving but much more importantly it's about what comes after. It's about the part that begins when the bullshit patriarchal, media glazed cultural narrative ends. It's about the Long messy follow-up that casts very long Shadows on the lives of those affected.
As a Survivor myself I found an unusual Community feeling manifesting as I progressed through the volume in that special way that lifts one's own burden.
An odd thing? Surely. But a real thing.

Reading this made me feel better not worse despite the obvious possibility of very bad things coming from this though I would still learn caution to anyone else with a survivor engaging perhaps trepidatiously into the first few pages of this volume take it slowly at your own pace, and stop if you need to.

5 out of 5. Would give it a 6 if I could.
Anything else I read on this related matters it's going to have a very high water mark indeed.

Reclaim your truth,
The Maenad