I need you to read The Secret History of the Rape Kit, because it’s essential. Like most true crime stories, the “facts” about the origins and biography of the rape kit are a matter of indifference to most. The truth of these stories lies in the beliefs we carry, regardless of the veracity of those beliefs. Kennedy has done a great service by resurrecting the life of Marty Goddard as innovator and driving force behind the rape kit and restoring her to timely recognition. The book slots well into current important conversations and it deserves to be read and talked about. It’s smart, compassionate, well researched and reported—and infuriating. How dare we forget the creator of something as vital as the rape kit? And how dare we turn away from the evidence it generates?

What, then, do we owe to those who survive sexual violence? What do we owe to the women innovators among us, overshadowed by men of lesser skill and intellect, but more rapacity? This brilliant, heartbreaking, necessary book captivated me immediately and does excellent, important work to define some of the key failures of thought, policy, and practice that led to Marty Goddard’s virtual disappearance and to the squandering of opportunities to address sexual crime by discarding mounds of evidence over years and decades. These failures are not done wreaking their havoc and imposing human costs; Kennedy brings these forward with care and a honed sense of ire.

The interpolation of the author’s own experiences with Goddard’s struggles, and with the challenges of digging up such a worthwhile cold case of innovation and foresight, is incisive. Kennedy brings strong empathy to compelling storytelling and an eye for nuanced detail that adumbrates a hidden figure, one whose importance should never have been lost. The writing is graceful, and one gets a strong sense of the tempered relentlessness not only of Marty Goddard, but of the author herself, chasing ghosts that haunt them both.

There is an urgent need for explorations of the myriad ways the legal system has consistently undermined justice – ignoring and pathologizing rape victims, warehousing and forgetting rape kit evidence, disregarding forensic failures – and the Secret History of the Rape Kit is a welcome addition to this growing body of work. It also goes some way to address other legal and civic failures by taking head-on the misdirection of recognition that Marty Goddard – and all the unsung heroes like her – endured. Kennedy offers a well-timed cry to policymakers and others to take these failures seriously and take steps to correct the errors of evidence and address systemic biases that create and perpetuate injustice.

Kennedy interweaves histories – of innovation, criminal justice, police procedure – and biographies – of Marty Goddard, of the author herself, and, importantly, of the rape kit as intellectual property, social object, and evidentiary tool – to convincingly document and illustrate why failures of procedure and of attribution are so costly at so many levels. If you care about justice, stolen ideas, systemic indifference to women’s experiences of violence, and the outcomes of a threadbare approach to forensic evidence, read this book.

The Secret History of the Rape Kit was full of educational content, and was very informative. The author did a great deal of research in identifying the origins of the rape kit, how it came about, and the process by which it was designed and eventually put into circulation for use. The inventor of the rape kit, Marty Goddard, was an ambitious young lady with a heart for injustices and the marginalized. She spent years promoting the idea of the rape kit, and found others to work with her in the creation of the kit. Due to the era (1970's) in which Marty created this kit, she ended up working with a reputable scientist/detective who worked in the Chicago crime lab, Louis Vitullo, and the rape kit was named after him. The author takes a great deal of time to explore the ramifications of Marty Goddard's input and development of the rape kit, and was able to give her credit where credit was due for the origination of the rape kit and the huge developments thereafter! This book will give you a great understanding of the need for the rape kit, the reasons behind the education present with law enforcement and hospital personnel, and society at large. Decades later, the backlog of processing and the realization of those wrongfully accused and imprisoned, led to the rape kit being an integral part of justice being restored for many. I really enjoyed learning about the rape kit and would recommend this book to those with interest in learning more!

Thank you for NetGalley and Vintage books for the ARC copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

This book was formatted in a way that was both informative and interesting. I felt like I was listening to a podcast as I was reading.

This is a important, informative and highly readable work of non-fiction. I learned so much about Marty Goddard and all the people working in this important area. I also appreciated the integration of Kennedy's experiences/stories into the narrative. It really makes this feel like a personal work rather than only a history.

There needs to be a list of books (and maybe there is!) for all of the instances where a woman did not get credit for her invention, idea or creation, but a man did! Kennedy's book is more than an expose of something that has been happening all through history. It a recounting of the relentless journey of Marty Goddard, an activist in the 70s who wanted a tool that would actually help police be able identify rapists and child molesters. She took her idea and a prototype to Louis Vitullo, a Chicago police sergeant, who presented it as his idea.
Through her extensive research, Kennedy learns of Goddard's struggles, the allies who contributed to the efforts (Playboy Corp. being one) and her almost complete disappearance. Her efforts to locate Goddard are a rich part of this book. Tenaciousness describes both women.
To me, one of the hallmarks of an excellent and engaging book is when it propells the reader to further explore the topic. Google and I were quite busy after I finished The Secret History of the Rape Kit.
Thanks to Net Galley for this opportunity.

The time and effort it must have taken to gather all of the details in this book and then piece them together so masterfully just leaves me speechless. As a nurse I found the history of the rape kit intriguing, but the story behind Marty was even more so. I loved every page and took so many notes throughout the book. I will for sure be purchasing this book in hardcover.

This was fantastically done and I could not stop reading. The author does a great job of being sensitive to SA survivors while also rightfully criticizing the systems which have silenced and harmed them. I have a feeling I’ll be thinking about this for a long time. Absolutely recommend to anyone who can handle the trigger warnings.

'The Secret History of the Rape Kit' by Pagan Kennedy is a very interesting and well-researched book. You not only learn about the history of the rape kit itself, but also about the treatment of women throughout history at the same time. An incredibly informative read.

SPOILER ALERT:
Marty Goddard sadly did not live to see her name attached to the rape kit she created. But I feel that being the bada** that she was, she’s out there somewhere and knows it. This was a really fascinating story about a reporters quest to find out the story behind the woman who created the rape kit and what inspired her to do so.
So many women throughout history, and even now, are scared to report sexual assault. They are ignored, ridiculed or harassed for doing so. Many medical professionals have little to no training to gather evidence as well, making getting a conviction extremely difficult. Marty’s kit made this possible for many women. Many years later, another woman created a kit that could be used at home for survivors that didn’t have access to medical care or were too frightened or embarrassed to do so. It could be used to store evidence that could be used at a later date. At first it was criticized, but a few years later, when Covid hit, one hospital decided to use it and it was successful. This led to other states creating their own kits for use.
Marty’s rape kit led the way for women to take back their power and not be victims. We can only move forward with these new kits. This is exactly the future she would have wanted to see.

Wow thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC. This story was so incredibly interesting and informative. This book should be read by every single person.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advanced readers copy of Pagan Kennedy’s book. The author found an affinity with Marty Goddard and obsessively researched her life’s work of supporting sexual assault victims. Along the way a history of the ways society has demeaned and let down thousands of victims emerges. In many ways the progress was slow, laborious and flawed; but that it did progress is due to the efforts of an extraordinary woman and those who picked up the torch after she put it down.
Reading like a novel, the facts and history from the 1970’s to today are fascinating. I was surprised to learn Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire supported Marty’s efforts early on, and was not surprised how often men take credit for inventions and block recognition or monetary gain from inventors who are women or people of color.

truly incredible story that took me a while to fully digest, and i can’t wait for this one to hit the shelves next year. while marty goddard and her creation of the rape kit are the main topic that we are following throughout the book, there are also discussions about child-on-child sexual abuse, the racial discrimination that Black women experience in medical settings, and the long standing struggle that women have experienced to have someone believe their words. if you are going to pick up this book, i highly recommend taking your time with it, checking trigger warnings and content warnings, and being safe to yourself when it gets to be too much. thank you to the publisher for the arc!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own

This is an interesting read. Although I found it interesting to read about the history of the rape kit, it really wasn’t comprehensive. It wasn’t really a biography for Marty Goddard either. It was a little all over the place at times. I enjoyed the read but it could’ve been more cohesive.

Fascinating and anger making. If rape had been taking seriously early, we wouldn’t be having to reeducate people about something this obvious.
Important information.

Thank you to NetGalley for this book in exchange for an honest review. This book is definitely heavy. At some points i felt like it was convoluted with the authors own narrative but it was definitely informative.

This was a fascinating book about the true woman behind the rape kit. It is extremely upsetting (but ultimately, not unbelievable) that it took until 1971 and a woman to deliver us the first rape kit. Marty Goddard was working at a crisis hotline and could not take it anymore, listening to survivor after survivor's story and hearing the same thing. She had to do something to stop these predators. Police would bungle cases if women came in to report a rape, assume it was a robbery instead, and make the women return home in hospital gowns and slippers. No wonder no women wanted to report anything if they weren't going to handled or taken seriously. Praise this woman for seeing a serious wrong and creating a path for these survivors to try to get justice.

I received an ARC of the book from NetGalley, and this is my voluntary and unbiased review.

This non-fiction story, that reads like a piece of journalism, tells the amazing and previously unknown life of Marty Goddard. She is the woman who created the rape kit, which completely changed how we sexual assault cases are handled and investigated. Despite her important contribution, Marty Goddard's story disappeared from history, and this book brings her incredible achievements to light.

I was completely fascinated by this book from start to finish. Pagan Kennedy did an excellent job of documenting her attempts to locate Marty Goddard, and obtain a factual history of the crucial role she played in developing the rape kit. This is a history that I was almost completely unaware of, and I now view Marty Goddard as a major hero in the fight for justice for sexual assault victims. This book explored how for centuries sexual assault was considered to be unprovable, therefore was never taken seriously. I also appreciated how this white author took time to highlight the major differences that white women face when it comes to sexual assaults, compared to women of color. This is a book you do not want to miss.

What an absolutely fascinating story this was! I had no idea of the intriguing history behind the scenes here, and really enjoyed watching credit finally go where it was most deserved. The politics of the rise of post-rape advocacy and women's rights was well represented. The writing was engaging and easy to follow..

Marty Goddard"s decline, after such influential and game-changing advocacy on behalf of those no one would listen to - or believe - is a tragic reminder that the world is not often kind to trailblazers... Pair that with Kennedy's own experiences of sexual assault and the result is a powerful and deeply moving story - and I'm so glad it's finally being told!

This book is incredibly well researched! As a girl who was raised on the Law and Order SVU reruns in USA, The Secret History of the Rape Kit was such an interesting read! I enjoyed the authors way of taking the reader on their journey of researching and finding the story of how the rape kit came to be. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the background of things in the true crime world and how they came to be.

Pagan Kennedy investigates the hidden woman behind the creation of the rape kit. She goes down a path of finding why Marty Goddard, the woman behind the curtain, decided to push for this and what came of her afterwards. As Kennedy explores the ins and out of Goddard's life, she also analyzes her own experience in this field and how Goodard's ideas could have helped her address her own trauma earlier.

This was a unique story and contained fascinating details about a more unknown aspect of history. Where I struggled a little bit is in the actual telling of Goddard's life. The pieces seemed disjointed and it felt like the author kept adding parts that she forgot happened. Also, the end was a little bit dry. After so much interest and excitement around Goddard, it fell a little flat when there was nothing else about her to discuss.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!