“I'm not sure why I liked this book. I am still debating with myself whether I liked it for the same reason I like reality television - I like to know about people's experiences, they tends to be mindless, yet you can still learn something from them, and I'm nosy. However, this book surpasses simple voyeurism, is more than craning one's neck to view the remains of a car accident. It has that immediate effect with the first 25 pages flying by with the retelling of Sebold's rape as a freshman in college.
But then the rape is over and you have to go on the aftermath journey with Sebold which is much more of a challenge and gives you, the reader, the greater reward. She writes with precise, direct detail about the entire experience - the rape, her family and friend's reaction, the rapist's trial (one of the most interesting parts of the book) and the experience of trying to move forward from there.
I appreciated thinking about her experience of writing the book and what writing can do for grievers, sufferers, victims. In my experience, the writing process forces the writer to confront an experience with directness in order to verbalize it and then to separate the writer from their experience by making it something in and of itself. I liked reliving that process. ”