This is a memoir about a very specific event. In college, Jeannie was raped by a close friend and now as an adult she wants to tell this story. She feels that she can't do it without speaking to this friend and finding out how he feels about it. This book is partly an interview with him and examines why it happened and the impact it has had on both of them. Beautifully written, this is a tough but necessary read.

Did I enjoy the book? Not at all.
Is it a necessary read? Completely (but do expect the author to continue to remind you how necessary this book is).

Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl by Jeannie Vanasco is a memoir about sexual assault perpetrated by a friend.

This is a book that needs to be read. It isn't like any memoir on sexual assault I've read. The author interviews the man, who used to be her friend, that assaulted her. She gets his feelings and tells hers as well. I think the author was very brave to write this memoir. Highly recommend.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

This book should be mandatory reading. These conversations are necessary and important and while I may not ever have the desire to talk to those that assaulted me about the assault, I gained some catharsis and understanding from this.

This is a powerful and unflinching memoir dealing with the author’s experience of being raped by one of her closest high school friends. It is unusually and bravely written, because Vanasco writes the novel at the same time as she begins to untangle the story of what happened, so there are passages where the reader feels they are discovering things alongside her. When she began writing the book, Vanasco took the bold step of reaching out to the man who had raped her and asking him to be interviewed about what happened from his point of view. A lot of the book is taken up with lengthy transcripts of their conversations as she attempts to unpack his understanding of what happened that night and since, to explore the dynamics of the friendship they once had, and to better understand her own need to behave in a certain way around him.

This was brilliant, everyone needs to read this book, especially women, but then again, especially men. The style was different to what I expected but it thoroughly suited the memoir. The book alternates between Jeannie's discussions with her friends and family about writing the book and her feelings and thoughts that she's going through and her transcribing the phone calls she has with Mark, her rapist. The chapters are titled based on a phrase from the upcoming chapter, often in relation to contents from the previous chapter.

*Disclaimer: The book, and I, have no intention to diminish the fact that men can be assaulted by women - that anyone of any gender can be assaulted by a person of any gender - we are just using these pronouns and generalisations because those are the ones relevant to the story.*

We learn more about Jeannie as the memoir progresses, and about her numerous sexual assaults. She is unflinching in her tellings of these stories, her experiences with mania and depression, and all the women that she knows that have been assaulted.

The reason I think all women should read this is because it really challenged a number of notions I held. Not only the idea that 'the rapist is a bad guy', although to be fair my own experience is certainly more nuanced than that. But it also challenges my internalised misogyny and 'performance of gender'. I had many of the same reactions as Jeannie 'oh that was nice of him', 'of course she would be grateful to him', until her friends called her out on it. Then she, and I, realised how accommodating she was being, how she was giving him the power, trying to keep the men in her life happy or help them.

I appreciated her growth to being able to take more control of the situation; of their conversations. I hope I also grew, at least to be more aware of when I'm being unnecessarily accommodating, through reading this book. I can see why she was concerned that many women reading this might have been angered by her giving her rapist a voice but I certainly didn't feel that way. Because in the end, it was still Jeannie's story, maybe not the story she anticipated writing, but one worth reading.

I think all men should read this because they need to know just how many women have been assaulted. Even I was surprised just how many women Jeannie knew who had been assaulted. They also need to know the definition of assault and rape and know how it affects women in so many different ways. I think all men, from those who have assaulted women, those who might, and those who would never can stand to be better informed.

We need more stories from 'regular' women. As was vaguely discussed near the beginning, it's one thing when it's directors assaulting models - it's not that it's not terrible, but it's harder to process because it's not necessarily a woman who you could know. But Jeannie is a woman you could know, she was a woman Mark did know - and assaulted anyway. And Mark is a man you could know - I don't want to say you should always be afraid of all men, but be cautious.

Oof. I suspected this would be great but it packs more of a punch than I even expected - Vanasco, a woman in her early 30s and teacher of memoir writing at a university, decides to get back in touch with her rapist, a guy she was close friends with as a teenager until he assaulted her at a party when she was 19. The book then chronicles the process of getting back in touch with this guy ("Mark"), first through a series of phone calls and how the process of revisiting the rape and her friendship with him - while also trying to write about it - impacts upon her, building up to when she decides to travel to meet him and interview him face to face.

Jeannie decides to record the phone calls, allowing for a level of self-analysis/reflection as well as being able to go over and really think about what Mark says during these conversations. She quickly realises that she is trying to reassure and comfort Mark through the language she uses to make sure she isn't making him feel uncomfortable. The level of introspection is, I guess, expected from someone who teaching memoir writing, but I found it added so much to the narrative. Why do (some) women find it so hard to put their own feelings above those of (almost invariably) men around them? Jeannie also discusses the writing process with a number of writer friends throughout the period spanning her conversations with Mark, helping her to further pick apart and analyse her own reaction to events, as well as how Mark responds to her getting back in touch.

I found this impossible to put down and a thought-provoking read on a number of levels.

Highly recommended.