This is the second time I've read this book. The first time was through a free digital ARC extended to me by the author, publisher, and NetGalley, for which I am incredibly grateful.

The first time I read this book, I found the opening pages unsettling and haunting. The matter-of-fact, almost detached manner in which Abdulali lays down the circumstances leading up to and following her own rape, as well as the violent act itself, made it no less daunting a read. It isn't her desire to spare us the details of her emotions, it is her ability to (eventually) come to terms with what happened, and reconcile (without apology) her actions afterwards.

The author goes to great pains to try to help define just what rape is. We already have our home-grown or law-based understanding of rape, but it varies when you cross borders, and it changes based on a number of circumstances. With each small grain of the final definition, she has to provide examples that will make the reader extremely uncomfortable - she recognizes this, and challenges the reader to explore where the discomfort comes from.

The book is devastating in its description of vicious attacks and the impact those attacks carry. It is surprising in its ability to offer humorous asides, with absolutely no disrespect to victims or their memories. It is painful to read, difficult to process, but important. The fact that it is the 21st century and such a book is required to educate is tragic. I cannot recommend this book enough.

This book should be required reading in every middle school or junior high school.

Wow. This book. This book was so good, but so difficult to read at times, and I could only read a little bit at a time. The discussion on rape and rape culture is so important, and I think this is an informative read.

I deeply appreciated the opportunity to read and review this book. I'll be using it's contents in my teaching and will make sure to keep an eye out for more works from this author/publisher.

Wow. This book was so hard to read but so important at the same time. Written by a survivor of sexual assault, you can feel her pain and the injustice, as well as other women pain. This book taught me a lot about not just rape, but the context in other cultures and countries and that we should talk more about rape.

This was a fantastic read. It was honest, powerful, real- like nothing I'd read before. It was really tough in parts, obviously because of the subject matter but it is a necessary piece of writing and to exclude the details that were graphic and hard hitting would, I feel have diminished some of the powerful effect of this book. Rape was discussed in the first person, and we heard many tales of rape from across the world. These were dealt with in detail, as were attitudes towards rape across the world and the changing attitudes towards rape today in the modern world. This was a book worth writing, it was needed and it is definitely worth reading and giving it your full attention. I give it 5 stars!!

A powerful and emotional read that had me captivated from the very first page. I felt such an emotional connection with this book. Having had my own experience it was often hard for me to read, knowing that the author is also a survivor but I felt represented and heard. I enjoyed the challenge to the current discourse and found this book to make extremely valid points beyond that of sexual assault but extending its reach to women's place and value in society today. I absolutely recommend this book to anyone that calls them a feminist and anyone who doesn't.

This is an intense and important discussion about not just rape, and the cultural context in various cultures and societies, but also, what are we saying when we talk about rape? It is fascinating, and really, a must- read.

5 stars
TW: Rape, Sexual Violence, Misogyny

I received an e-arc from netgalley for review, this was actually was the first book I ever requested and got approved for. I read this book over a time of six months, since it is a non fiction I tended to dip in and out. I found the writing style captivating, it is extremely accessible and shares emotional stories while comparing the differences between western and eastern views. The author has lived in both India and the USA, this also includes stories from the author's personal experience. That being said it is still a difficult, frustrating and heartbreaking read but so necessary. Especially in regards to recent politics going on in the world.

I admit I had to restart this book, or put it down and come back to it quite a few times. The topic can be a struggle to confront and read about. Abdulali's work highlights everything everyone should know about the subject. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this work to everyone I know. While a difficult subject, the writing is engaging, covers numerous experiences, cultures, and viewpoints, and I learned a lot from reading this book. This book has an abundance of positive points going for it, and I am glad I had the opportunity to provide an honest opinion and the opportunity to read. Thank you Netgalley and the publisher.

Hard to read because of the heavy topic, but really good and insightful overall. I would recommend!!

Drawing on her own experience, her research, her work with hundreds of survivors as the head of a rape crisis center in Boston, and three decades of grappling with the issue as a feminist intellectual and writer, Abdulali examines the contemporary discourse about rape and rape culture, questioning our assumptions and asking how we want to raise the next generation.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is not only a comprehensive and compelling account of the global discourse on rape, but a harrowing and introspective analysis of the global rape culture we have cultivated. Abdulali oscillates between a personal exploration of rape through the experiences of the author and her interviewees and an academic interrogation of the discourse and nature and trends of the crime. I found this a very compelling approach, which resulted in a very cohesive and comprehensive of rape and sexual assault, particularly due to the wide scope of the project as she tackled a multitude of different geographical and sociopolitical contexts.

What I enjoyed most about this text was how Abdulali deep-dives so effectively into every area of the discourse. She writes about every aspect of the experience of rape and sexual assault, examining why rape occurs, whether some rapes are "worse" than others and whether a world without rape is possible. In particular, I found her discussion of the all-encompassing effects of the stigmatisation of rape and silencing of victims as in part entrenching rape culture revelatory.

As I have actually read a lot on this topic from a legal academic perspective throughout my degrees, a lot of this book was a retread of themes and information that I had already considered at length. In that sense, I think this text would be even more thought-provoking and effecting for a reader without that background. It is so good that I have finally found an accessible and comprehensive text on this subject to recommend to other readers. This really should be required reading for all. It is books like these that can have such a concrete effect on the layperson and how rape is dealt with in society.

With the advent of electronic communication, it is far easier for us today than it ever has been before to find and converse with others who are like-minded or who have similar experiences/backgrounds/cultures. This has been a wonderful development, allowing collaborations and real-time information updates, and so much more. And, although it is difficult to consider this a "positive," per se, our ability to share information around the world at the speed of sound has enabled us to see the darkest parts of humanity.



We should not cheer to realize that women and girls throughout the world are being systematically raped. We cannot consider it a boon to society that rape is deliberately used as a tool to terrify, subjugate, threaten, and control vulnerable people. However, we, as a global people, must not be willing to back away from this information and plead ignorance. We know what's going on. Now, we need to do something - many somethings - about it.



Rape is something that we must never become comfortable with or allow to become set apart from us, as a larger group. I love this book because it does not shy away from the topic of rape. This is a genuine, brutally honest discussion about one of humanity's worst weapons. This book gives us names and faces, facts and histories. Real information to broaden our understanding and allow further honest conversations to occur.



One thing this book is not, is comprehensive. Don't look to it as a complete topic contained within two covers. This is just a start. A way to become familiar with terminology, some basic facts, and then it is up to the reader to keep progressing from there.



So much needs to be done to address the rape crisis in this world. What to do for survivors, how to prevent attacks, how to punish violators. How to educate about the reality of this situation. How to stop victim-blaming. How to prevent the creation of new survivors and violators.



Make no mistake. Rape is absolutely a weapon. Rape has been used as a weapon since time immemorial, and is still used today because it continues to do exactly what the violators want it to do. Rape still causes catastrophic damage. Rape is still terrifying enough to make people willing to bend to another's will, if only to avoid it happening to themselves or others.



I don't personally believe, at this point, that we will be able to take the power out of rape. What we can and MUST do, however, is find a way to make the cost unthinkable to offenders, and to empower victims and would-be victims. And we must, must find a way to respond on a global scale, as this is genuinely a global problem.



I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I sincerely think it should be required curriculum in every high school, secondary school, and college throughout the world.

Vital reading. It's hard to say you 'like' a book like this, as it's a brutal and difficult read. It's a great mix of personal and anecdotal stories with larger issues of rape, particularly the difficulty in balancing the life-shattering seriousness of rape with the fact that people can (and do) go on to live rich and joyful lives after rape. This book is worthy of close reading and discussion, and should be assigned reading for older teenagers in schools.

I can't say that I "liked" this book because it deals with a topic that isn't very likable: rape. However, I will say that this is an important book that I would encourage everyone to read. The author, Sohaila Abdulali (also a rape survivor), takes this topic and engages it head on. She covers women's stories from all around the globe and explores the various cultural contexts of rape. As a person who rejects First/Third Worldism, I found the global perspective here notable, a breath of fresh air. This book is also current, which I liked. The #MeToo movement is discussed, as well as latest political campaign, which gave rise to the public dialogue that has been swirling about rape, toxic masculinity, and the rights of women.

I don't know, though...if you're pretty well versed in this topic I can't agree that reading this will give you any new insights. Although the readability of this book is wonderful, I felt like the chapters were too brief and the topics skipped around too much. Within a 5 page span you get collected personal narratives to political opinions to the author's input, which never really lingered long enough to offer a lot of in-depth analysis. 

Definitely do read this, though. I'd give this a firm 3.5 stars.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is not an easy read, but it is a vitally important addition to conversations about rape culture. Sohaila Abdulali allows herself to be fully human throughout, which lends more authenticity to the moments of advice and suggestion. Talking about rape is essential; it is also messy and complicated and contradictory and problematic. This book addresses every aspect of the conversation, from parents struggling to be open with their children about their own sexual assault experiences to making space for survivors with diverse and individual reactions to their trauma. I had to walk away from this book often, but I think that's okay. It's not a flaw. This book is triggering, and I think that the author expects a certain necessity for self care as readers navigate the essays. Ultimately, I found myself talking about parts of the book with my kids, my wife, my colleagues. If the goal is to spark conversation, then this book is hugely successful.

The author talks about her own experience with rape - as a personal experience, as the subject for her thesis, and as a counselor at a rape crisis center. She had interviewed many people all over the world and talks about the various country cultures that have harmed rather than helped sexual assault survivors. It reminds us that there is no rational reason for rape and it will continue until rape is addressed and part of a worldwide conversation to bring it out of the shadows, properly educate about consent, and remove stigma from rape victims. It even talks about the difference between a sex worker and a trafficking victim. Very interesting, informative, and a good reference.

I was Raped about two months ago and this is one of the best books Ive read about it. This is a great book. Sohaila Abdulali was raped as a 17 year-old woman by five men while out with her male friend in Mumbai. Speaking about her own experience as a survivor as well as educator, academic, and head of the rape crisis centre in Boston, this book is a great overview on the current discussion on rape, and rape culture.

The title really says it, an immensely disturbing book in the sense that the author has done a lot of research and come up with stories of mostly women who have been raped. The tremendous indecencies, pain and suffering women have experienced (and I should add some men) . For most a life changing event, many never telling anyone of their experience. It tells of the different ways it has affected the victims, and I would say how little it has affected most of the abusers. Why can’t women talk about it? A question the author tries to answer. She tells of her own horrendous experience and what changes it made in her life.. We may be talking about rape and abuse more now than in the past, but it is obvious from this book that we have a long way to go, If you or anyone you know has been sexually abused, or even if you don’t I recommend you read this book, Very much in the news and needs to be out in the open..

Powerfully written testimonial of the attitudes and experiences of women (mostly) of rape across cultures and time. The author provides her own experience with rape -- and with writing about rape -- as a backdrop for first-person accounts of the impacts of rape, getting on with life after and the changes in attitude around the world toward rape (though mostly in India, Europe and the US). This book is incredibly well written and personal - highly recommended for everyone.

A painful but engaging and accessible story that gives a perspective that all of society sorely needs right now. I purchased it for my library.