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A review by danicapage
Althea & Oliver by Cristina Moracho
1.0
I work with survivors of assault, and that's going to color my review here. What Althea did was rape and sexual assault. Period. Full stop.
I can understand why the characters didn't label it as such. That's realistic and something that happens often for both perps and survivors. Sometimes people see the word "rape/rapist" and don't think that's what happened/applies to them. But let's be clear that what the author describes as "Althea makes a big mistake" was that Althea raped Oliver.
A friend asked me to read it because she's looking for representation in YA about boys who are raped by girls. I don't think this is a story about a boy who is raped so much as a story about a girl who is the perpetrator and isn't remorseful for it or introspective about it.
Althea's actions are a catalyst for her story, but we don't see accountability or realization or true guilt/remorse or attempts to correct her wrong. We see justification, avoidance, rationalization, blame, and anger at Oliver. It's all kind of dismissed.
We do not ulltimately have any realy sense of self-responsibility or introspection. Since we are in Althea's head, we are meant to sympathize and agree with her. That's where I have issues. We're meant to side with her, but she is in the wrong. Althea is a full character, vibrant, bright, and well-fleshed out. She's lively, messy, and passionate. She also violates her best friend and we don't see her account for it.
The vibrancy of Althea makes the absence of character development of Oliver stark. Some of that is because of his illness. But he is a ghost in the story that is acted upon. He is there to set up Althea's story and create an interesting premise, but he not really a person or story himself. We do see him wrestling with what happened, and we do see him get told the lies boy survivors are told: "you should feel lucky, what do you have to be sad about," etc. He gets told this by the one person he tells as he's ashamed to speak about it. All of this happens in real life. My problem is these narratives are never countered or never corrected. We don't really see Oliver working through what happened. Which is also normal. It's realistic for a boy survivor to bury what happened.
But one day, Oliver will realize the full import of what happened and have to face it. And that's my issue, in the book, what happens is trivialized, justified, and dismissed. And this book is geared for teens who aren't fully formed enough to realize that none of this is okay because the book presents it all as okay. Okay that Althea raped her friend and okay that Oliver and her quickly moved on from it.
Survivors often do feel conflicted and complicated feelings about perps; not all want criminal justice and authorities involved. Some even love or still like the perp. But Oliver clearly felt like he'd been violated and it's quickly dismissed and not explored. That I take issue with. He's also painted as the unreasonable or wrong one. And there are even attempts to say he was responsible for what happened.
The book is about a lot more than just rape. But for a book that's one of the few about male survivors; I think it was not done with care and will result in boy survivors feeling further unseen and further dismissed. Consent can be complicated to navigate (especially when we don't teach our kids what it is.) However, here, the author did a lot of work to set up that Althea knew it wasn't the real Oliver, he wasn't in right mind, and didn't want sex, so it's not ambiguous. It's clear that Althea knew what was going on and that she took advantage. It's rape. Even if it's never called that.
And that's ultimately my problem.
The story is edgy, provcative, and raw. The writer is clearly talented. But as a story about a boy who was assaulted, it's sad how it's portrayed.
I can understand why the characters didn't label it as such. That's realistic and something that happens often for both perps and survivors. Sometimes people see the word "rape/rapist" and don't think that's what happened/applies to them. But let's be clear that what the author describes as "Althea makes a big mistake" was that Althea raped Oliver.
A friend asked me to read it because she's looking for representation in YA about boys who are raped by girls. I don't think this is a story about a boy who is raped so much as a story about a girl who is the perpetrator and isn't remorseful for it or introspective about it.
Althea's actions are a catalyst for her story, but we don't see accountability or realization or true guilt/remorse or attempts to correct her wrong. We see justification, avoidance, rationalization, blame, and anger at Oliver. It's all kind of dismissed.
We do not ulltimately have any realy sense of self-responsibility or introspection. Since we are in Althea's head, we are meant to sympathize and agree with her. That's where I have issues. We're meant to side with her, but she is in the wrong. Althea is a full character, vibrant, bright, and well-fleshed out. She's lively, messy, and passionate. She also violates her best friend and we don't see her account for it.
The vibrancy of Althea makes the absence of character development of Oliver stark. Some of that is because of his illness. But he is a ghost in the story that is acted upon. He is there to set up Althea's story and create an interesting premise, but he not really a person or story himself. We do see him wrestling with what happened, and we do see him get told the lies boy survivors are told: "you should feel lucky, what do you have to be sad about," etc. He gets told this by the one person he tells as he's ashamed to speak about it. All of this happens in real life. My problem is these narratives are never countered or never corrected. We don't really see Oliver working through what happened. Which is also normal. It's realistic for a boy survivor to bury what happened.
But one day, Oliver will realize the full import of what happened and have to face it. And that's my issue, in the book, what happens is trivialized, justified, and dismissed. And this book is geared for teens who aren't fully formed enough to realize that none of this is okay because the book presents it all as okay. Okay that Althea raped her friend and okay that Oliver and her quickly moved on from it.
Survivors often do feel conflicted and complicated feelings about perps; not all want criminal justice and authorities involved. Some even love or still like the perp. But Oliver clearly felt like he'd been violated and it's quickly dismissed and not explored. That I take issue with. He's also painted as the unreasonable or wrong one. And there are even attempts to say he was responsible for what happened.
The book is about a lot more than just rape. But for a book that's one of the few about male survivors; I think it was not done with care and will result in boy survivors feeling further unseen and further dismissed. Consent can be complicated to navigate (especially when we don't teach our kids what it is.) However, here, the author did a lot of work to set up that Althea knew it wasn't the real Oliver, he wasn't in right mind, and didn't want sex, so it's not ambiguous. It's clear that Althea knew what was going on and that she took advantage. It's rape. Even if it's never called that.
And that's ultimately my problem.
The story is edgy, provcative, and raw. The writer is clearly talented. But as a story about a boy who was assaulted, it's sad how it's portrayed.