Helpful Score: 29
This book was so intense that I had to take breaks from reading it due to the realness of the subject matter. I can't imagine having gone through what Alice went through and then being OK psychologically. As it turned out, Alice wasn't as OK as she thought she was, as evidenced by her later drug use and other behaviors. I read the NPR transcript of her conversation with Terry Gross on 'Fresh Air' at the end of the novel and I liked what she had to say about therapeutic writing, that writing can be therapeutic, but that therapeutic writing shouldn't be published. I think I agree with that statement. I'm sure many memoirs are written as a form of therapy, but in Alice's case, her memoir came to be after she reached a point where she was OK. As she stated, reading her journals about how she felt after the rape after all those years was "mind-blowing" and made her realize that she "did OK." I also liked what she had to say about being able to find compassion for the man that raped her, that just because you can't forgive someone for what they've done to you, doesn't mean you can't find compassion for them.
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