lucky

last sunday night, just before snark's mom arrived, i finished lucky, alice sebold's memoir.

sebold was brutally beaten and raped the last day of her freshman year at syracuse university. in her memoir, she details the attack and her experiences dealing with the memory as she returns to college; runs into her rapist one day on the street; the long process of persecuting his crime in court; the experience of testifying and the attempts at intimidation by the rapist and his lawyer; and later, after her rapist has been tried and found guilty, the experience of coming home one night to her off campus apartment and finding that her best friend (and housemate) has just been raped in sebold's bedroom.

it is an intense book to read, but worth it, as sebold not only shares her experience as a victim of rape and violence, but also the varying reactions to her (and to her experience) from her mom and dad, people from her hometown, friends from school, as well as students who suddenly knew of her, the lawyers and police officers involved with the case, her professors, etc.

as a side note, sebold's novel, the lovely bones, is just as good (and sad)--i cried during both books. despite the horrifying violence against women that occurs in both of these books, the descriptions are not hollywoodized, (that is, violence sexualized or dramatized for the pleasure of others, which happens often in many rape scenes from books and film).

i recommend reading both of these books for the straight forward way it deals with the horrible and prevalent crime of rape and violence against women.