In a narrative by turns disturbing, thrilling and inspiring, Alice Sebold illuminates the experience of trauma victims even as she imparts wisdom profoundly hard-won: "You save yourself or you remain unsaved".

This is a stunning book, I found it impossible to put down. Alice Sebold describes her rape as an eighteenyear old, her ensuing fight for justice and the longer and darker struggle to come to terms with post traumatic stress disorder. It is a stark tale, but she is honest about the effects it had on her emotions and on her life.

RELEASE NOTES:

Caught at the Salcey Forest meet up, to be read and released.

Read this in one sitting, I just couldn't put it down without wanting to know how it ended. It's an absolutely unflinching tale of Sebold's brutal rape, her successful pursual of her rapist's conviction, and how her life unfolded, forever altered, after such a horrific attack. It is deeply affecting, terribly sad, humorous, angering and bleak, sometimes all at the same time, and in my opinion is a book of incredible value. In a country that considers itself civilised and relatively advanced, the fact that the conviction rate for rape has fallen to an all-time low of 5%, implies that the courage and wisdom of rape survivors like Sebold is needed now more than ever. Her bravery is inspirational, her unwavering demand for justice a great example to us all. I think all men and women need to read this book.

Order for the bookray:

Spartaca
Maggiemo
KT-J
iliotropio
midlifecrisis

And off it goes to Spartaca today...

I should have journalled this straight away so that the sender knows I got it. I got it in the post about four weeks ago. Like Millycat and PussInBooks, I too found it both disturbing and inspiring, and it was very hard to put down. I read it straight off within two days, even though there were other things I should have been doing. It''s that kind of book. I''m now reading it again more slowly, before I send it off to the next person.

What''s disturbing first of all is Alice Sebold''s description of her rape, right at the start of the book. The detail it goes into is almost pornographic, I thought, and I wondered how a woman could write such a thing. I nearly didn''t read the rest of the book. But you have to remember that this is a memoir, something that actually happened.

The other thing that strikes me is, Alice Sebold comes across as a very tough, resilient person but she says it took her 15 years to fully get over being raped and battered. This was in spite of getting her attacker successfully prosecuted, which you would expect might give her a sense of justice being done, of "closure". It makes you wonder how long it takes anybody to get over being subjected to a violent crime.

What''s most disturbing is how people reacted to her after the rape, including people close to her. Most of it was absolutely unhelpful: incomprehension, blame, repulsion, disbelief. She describes all this very bluntly and matter-of-factly. Sebold''s account shows that rape isn''t just an ordinary violent crime, it''s thick with taboos and an invariable tendency to blame the victim. It''s also tainted with historic ideas about women being the property of men. This happened in 1981. I''m not sure attitudes have changed much since then.

Going off to Maggiemo this week.

Started reading this on the bus into work.Was not expecting the beginning. I felt bad. voyearistic( I am crap at spelling)especially on the bus, but it was something I could not put down. Disturbing,but still a glimmer of hope in the middle of all the horror was Her resilence. Will contact KT-J and post asap

Received safe. Thanks maggiemo for sending this to me and thanks PussInBooks for letting me join the bookray.

I've got a couple of bookrings ahead of this (not good bookring management on my part I'm afraid) but will hopefully get onto this shortly.

This book is so completely different to Alice Sebold's other one (The Lovely Bones) that it could have been written by another author but Lucky is also brilliant, moving and inspirational.

The way she so matter of factly describes her horrific ordeal and the subsequent reactions and trial, and especially the way her family acted, must have been so hard to write about but she does it, as she acted at the time, with huge courage and wit. The fact that it lived with her for so long shows how traumatic these things are and highlights the general lack of awareness and understanding that exists surrounding these types of issues.

Having read this after Toni Maguire's Don't Tell Mummy (a biography of child abuse) I'm beginning to think that the world we live in is in fact quite a depressing one where many things go on which shouldn't and with not much legal support to stop it happening. I hope that the people that have read this encourage others to read it as well which is why bookcrossing and bookrings are so important for raising awareness.

Thanks again PussInBooks for starting this ring. I've got iliotropio's address so this will be in the post this week.

Edit 09/11/07: This was posted today.

Arrived safely in Brussels.
Thank you KT-J (for the kind note as well).

Breathtaking! An absolute must-read.
On its way to midlifecrisis.

Received today - thank you. I am in the middle of a counselling course and recently attended a one day conference staged by our local women's rape and sexual abuse centre, so I am sure this book will provide thought provoking material on all levels.

What a great read. A very moving account which succeeds on all levels in that it is educative on how hard it is for rape victims to get justice, reactions of other people and so on, but it never loses its momentum and personal interest. I am grateful to Alice Sebold for laying her life open in this way. I see I am the last on the list, so I will start a new thread for this and see if anyone else wants to keep it moving.

Handed to a friend in the hope she will share it with others.