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A review by fantasynovel
Asking For It by Louise O'Neill
4.0
CW for sexual assault
I've been thinking about this book a lot, and I'm removing a star bc it didn't do enough to show that even "small" rape is still ... rape. Before all the "bad stuff" happens, the main character is already raped. It's very fast; she says "I want to go back to the party" but she's really drunk and the boy she's with doesn't listen to her. And this is never revisited as rape. It's all about what happens later that night, when she's raped by four boys while unconscious. While this is clearly a terrible, terrible thing, it makes it seem like saying no while you're drunk isn't enough to make a "real" rape. You have to be unconscious, brutally assaulted, and then peed on for it to count. Idk if this makes any sense, it's just what I was thinking about.
I've been thinking about this book a lot, and I'm removing a star bc it didn't do enough to show that even "small" rape is still ... rape. Before all the "bad stuff" happens, the main character is already raped. It's very fast; she says "I want to go back to the party" but she's really drunk and the boy she's with doesn't listen to her. And this is never revisited as rape. It's all about what happens later that night, when she's raped by four boys while unconscious. While this is clearly a terrible, terrible thing, it makes it seem like saying no while you're drunk isn't enough to make a "real" rape. You have to be unconscious, brutally assaulted, and then peed on for it to count. Idk if this makes any sense, it's just what I was thinking about.