All of these vital, significant human beings whose lives were infected with this kind of experience … it’s staggering, when you really think about it. There is not a single essay in this collection that didn’t make my heart hurt in some way. There is no way to perform perfectly as “the victim” and not somehow be blamed, shamed, or otherwise marginalized if you tell people about your experience.īut all the voices in this collection are just so interesting in terms of what they have to say. I’m not going to get into that here (read the book), but it weighed on me as I read these essays, the idea that, in the end, these people can’t win. Yet one of rape culture’s most pernicious attributes is how it punishes victims both for speaking and not speaking. Gay offers space in which victims can speak up. Who gets a voice? is an ever-present theme running throughout this collection. There is a way for each person who speaks up-or, as Zoë Medeiros says, refuses to share because the story belongs to her and no one else. If it does anything, Not That Bad hopefully shatters the stereotype that there is “one way” for a rape victim to act, appear, or share their story. Everyone’s experiences are different and affect them in different ways. It’s also really important to note that these 30 stories are all extremely diverse in the telling. This is a serious book, sure, about a serious matter-but it’s such an important read. Roxane Gay collects 30 essays about rape or rape culture, some previously published and others newly written for this book. Also, I was going on a library run and it was available.

With the news coming out of the United States about abortion bans and lawmakers who actually use phrases like “consensual rape,” this seemed like the right time to read Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture.

Roxane gay book reviews