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In a memoir hailed for its searing candor and wit, Alice Sebold reveals how her life was utterly transformed when, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus. What propels this chronicle of her recovery is Sebold's indomitable spirit - as... read more

Summary edit see section history

This book is about a girl named Alice who was in college. She was raped in a park close to her dorm on her way home. She was a virgin so it was more brutal than ever. After she reported to the police they said she was lucky because a girl had been killed there before. She went home before her... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

This book is about a girl named Alice who was in college. She was raped in a park close to her dorm on her way home. She was a virgin so it was more brutal than ever. After she reported to the police they said she was lucky because a girl had been killed there before. She went home before her next semester to hopefully recover. They never found her attacker, but when she went back to school she saw her rapist walking down the sidewalk as a free man. When he approached her he said he knew her from somewhere and just smiled at her. She called the police and they arrested him. Her professor Mr. Tess Gallagher was a very nice friend to her he also went to most of her hearings with her. She had to pick out her attacker in a line up but picked the wrong one because he brought a friend that looked just like him to make her be confused. They finally got the right one and he was convicted of the rape. After awhile Alices roomate ws also raped, but oddly there was no connection between the two attacks. I like this book, it is very inspiring to do what will make you feel right with yourself again.

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “" I share my life with my rapist. He is the husband to my fate"”
  • “" We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without."”
  • “"Try, if you,can to remember everything."”
  • “"Poetry is not an attitude. It is hard work."”
  • “"It made me realize that in the Sebold house, love was duty. Hekissedher on the forehead, the kind the would fulfiil the demand of his child but nothing else."”
  • “"In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once and underground entry to an ampitheater, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl had been murdered and dismembered. I was told this story by the police. In comparison, they said, I was lucky." (Carley)”
  • ““I live in a world where the two truths, coexist; where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand.” (Carley)”
  • “"I forgive you," I said. I said what I had to. I would die by pieces to save myself from real death." (Carley)”
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • No one can pull anyone back from anywhere. You save yourself or you remain unsaved.
    Highlighted by 101 Kindle customers
  • “We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.”
    Highlighted by 52 Kindle customers
  • memory could save, that it had power, that it was often the only recourse of the powerless, the oppressed, or the brutalized.
    Highlighted by 44 Kindle customers
  • Magically I became story, not person, and story implies a kind of ownership by the storyteller.
    Highlighted by 32 Kindle customers
  • It was an early nuance of a realization that would take years to face. I share my life not with the girls and boys I grew up with, or the students I went to Syracuse with, or even the friends and people I’ve known since. I share my life with my rapist. He is the husband to my fate.
    Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers
  • She had done instinctively what few people do in the face of a crisis: She had signed on for the whole ride.
    Highlighted by 25 Kindle customers
  • Fires were horrible, no doubt, but what I became obsessed with was how they seemed, inevitably, to mark a change.
    Highlighted by 22 Kindle customers
  • I was trying to prove to them and to myself that I was still who I had always been. I was beautiful, if fat. I was smart, if loud. I was good, if ruined.
    Highlighted by 21 Kindle customers
  • She was uncomfortable around me; I was no longer like her but was other than.
    Highlighted by 20 Kindle customers
  • They do not have a normal “baseline” level of alert but relaxed attention. Instead, they have an elevated baseline of arousal: their bodies are always on the alert for danger. They also have an extreme startle response to unexpected stimuli … People with post-traumatic stress disorder take longer to fall asleep, are more sensitive to noise, and awaken more frequently during the night than ordinary people. Thus traumatic events appear to recondition the human nervous system.
    Highlighted by 20 Kindle customers
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Setting & Locations edit see section history

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Organizations edit see section history

  • Algonquin Round Table: wikipedia: The Algonquin Round Table was a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle," as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929. At these luncheons they engaged in wisecracks, wordplay and witticisms that, through the newspaper columns of Round Table members, were disseminated across the country.
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: wikipedia: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (colloquially The Met) is an art museum on the eastern edge of Central Park, along "Museum Mile" in New York City, United States. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works of art, divided into nineteen curatorial departments.<6> The main building, often called "the Met", is one of the world's largest art galleries
  • Penn State: wikipedia: The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania, in the United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service. Its instructional mission <2> includes undergraduate, graduate, professional and continuing education offered through resident instruction and online delivery. Its University Park campus, the largest of 24 campuses across the state, lies within the Borough of State College and College Township, Pennsylvania.
  • Syracuse University: wikipedia: Syracuse University (also referred to as SU, Syracuse, or 'Cuse)<6> is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College. Following several years of debate over relocating the college to Syracuse, the university was founded independent of the college in 1870. Since 1920, the university has identified itself as nonsectarian,<7> although it still maintains an affiliation with the United Methodist Church.
  • Mt Holyoke College: wikipedia: Mount Holyoke College is a prestigious liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is a member of the Seven Sisters and is one of the oldest women's colleges in the United States.<4> It was the first of the Seven Sisters and served as a model for some of the others. Mount Holyoke is part of the Pioneer Valley's Five College Consortium, along with Amherst College, Smith College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
  • Attica Prison: wikipedia: The Attica Correctional Facility is a supermax penitentiary in the town of Attica, New York,<1><2> operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services. After it was constructed in the 1930s, it held many of the most dangerous criminals of the time. A tear gas system is installed in the mess hall and industry areas and has been used to quell conflicts in these areas. The prison now holds many inmates who are serving various types of sentences (short-term to life), and who are usually sent to the facility because of disciplinary problems in other facilities

First Sentence edit see section history

This is what I remember.

Table of Contents edit see section history

Shapter names are just numbered...one, two, three...

Glossary edit see section history

  • Chaparral: a thicket of shrubs or dwarf trees
  • Assiduous: persistent application or attention
  • Histrionic: theatrical, melodramatic behavior
  • Succor: something that administers relief
  • Adjunct: something added on but not essential to the whole
  • Serology: a medical science dealing with blood serum especially in regard to its reactions and properties
  • Subvert: : to overturn or overthrow from the foundation : ruin2: to pervert or corrupt by an undermining of morals, allegiance, or faith
  • TEC-9: wikipedia: The Intratec TEC-DC9 (TEC-9) is a blowback-operated, semi-automatic firearm, chambered in 9x19mm Parabellum, and classified by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as a handgun. Designed by Intratec, an American offshoot of Interdynamic AB, it is made of inexpensive molded polymers and stamped steel parts. Magazines with 10-, 20-, 32-, 36-, -50 and upwards of 72-rounds are made. The three models are referred to as the TEC-9, although only one model was sold under that name.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This book is in Zlatko Crnković vam predstavlja (Algoritam, Zagreb). (publisher series)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Alice Sebold (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Little, Brown
Country: United States
Publication Date: August 4, 1999
ISBN: 0684857820
Page Count: 272

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: HV6561 .S44 1999
  • Dewey: 364.1532092

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Adults

Graphic rape scenes discussed

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • Strange Piece of Paradise
  • Beyond Survival
  • The Obsidian Mirror
  • Ordeal
  • Savage Shadows: Eileen Ross's True Story of Blindness, Rape and Courage
  • Sex Crimes

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history

   
  • Survivor Personality
  • Recovering From Rape
  • On Trial

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