Sometime in 2016 I found a list of best long-form reporting stories of the past year. Deep into the list, I clicked on this story from ProPublica and The Marshall Project, about a young woman who reported being repeatedly raped over many hours by a masked man, in her apartment, and the nightmare scenario which unfolded as she was accused of making a false report, then arrested and forced to go before a judge to plead guilty for her “crime.” The story was embedded into my memory for […]
This is as much a self-portrait of an obsessive mind as it is a true crime book.
I will not let this review defeat me! I will not! I have so much to say about this book I don’t know how to organize it, and I’m still not sure what I’m going to rate it even as I type this; and I’m still freaked out by it, and still sad, and I want the Golden State Killer caught, but what if he’s dead?? If he’s dead, we’re never going to catch him!! ARGGGGh. Okay, so I’ve been looking forward to this book […]
Burn it all down
Obviously books about rape aren’t the easiest reads in the world, but this one actually felt easier than most. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to get angry and be horrified about in here. It’s just that the authors presented their material in a way that wasn’t gratuitous or overwhelmingly gruesome. I felt like they walked the line between letting the reader know the full picture of what happened without going overboard on crime details. A few years ago, ProPublica and The Marshall Project […]
A great primer in how both higher education and the justice system victimise women a second time in cases of rape and assault
I finally picked up Missoula just as the #metoo revelations started to pick up steam. As someone who’s had a lifetime full of #metoo moments, I was both eager and hesitant to dive into this read about multiple rape accusations in the college town of Missoula, Montana (home of the University of Montana Grizzlies!), and the school, and/or police investigations, (or lack thereof) and trials, (or lack thereof) which resulted from those accusations. This is not a good choice for the faint-hearted, or anyone who has been […]