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Know My Name by Chanel Miller

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emmah36's review

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5.0

Everyone should read this.

laurencatherine44's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

“I believe that’s what being a victim is: living with that little, finicky, darting thing inside you. Most people say development is linear. But, for survivors, it is cyclic. People grow up, victims grow around. We strengthen around that place of hurt, become older and fuller, but the vulnerable core is never gone. More than becoming a frog, I believe surviving means learning to live forever with this trembling tadpole.”

This book healed a part of me I didn’t know was still hurting. I needed these words from Chanel. I needed the acknowledgment that I am not broken because sometimes I still live in the darkness of that pain. Reading this book helped me feel seen and heard and valued in ways I can’t even describe.

sara_b's review against another edition

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5.0

Chanel Miller was known as Emily Doe in the Stanford assault case (People v. Turner). In this memoir, she takes us to the night of the assault and its aftermath with an amazingly strong and clear point of view.
This was one of the most powerful, inspiring, and devastating memoirs I've ever read. She has articulated every thought, emotion, and experience in such a thoughtful way.
She is constantly reminding us of the injustice, prejudice, and humiliation victims face after an assault. How privileged people are treated differently, even if their guilt is obvious. When you search about this case, one of the first results is Brock Turner's face. A 20-year-old white student. His age and nativity might provoke some sympathy, some thoughts about maybe he made a mistake! But in the course of the court it is clear that he has no regrets, not even his family and friends, but also his legal team and a fraction of the public are trying to blame the victim and portrait him as a victim. When faced with ridiculous reasoning in the defense process of Brock Turner she writes:

I was always reminded they were just doing their jobs. Now I realize, yeah, maybe this was your job, but it still takes a certain kind of person to do this job

How on point is that!
What I really appreciate is that she has not limited the narration only to her own story and has mentioned other cases with similar dynamics. It is frustrating how not only the system but also people's views and reactions can hurt the victims and affect the rest of their lives. She insists on how important it is for everyone to learn not to define a human being by just one incident.
To have a glimpse of the burden she felt read this part she wrote:

On August 8, 2018, my DA texted me, Judgment affirmed! The appeal was denied. It was like the sound of a last breath, a beat, the lightness of a bird lifting off a wire. Three years and eight months after that night in January, the case was closed. It brought to mind a Hafiz poem:
And then, all the and thens ceased.
Nothing remains to be done in the
Order of time, when all is still.

(I have to admit I couldn't guess which poem of Hafez this might be!)

If you're not sure whether this book is a good choice for you, I recommend you to read her statement in the court in which Brock was sentenced to six months in jail because a longer sentence would have "a severe impact on him," according to the judge!

p.s1: I have to say how heartwarming it is to see people like the Swedish students who stopped him and Alaleh Kianerci the prosecuting Attorney who believed in her and didn't give up.
p.s2: Before reading pay attention to the trigger warnings.