![]() ![]() The part where she contemplates whether to testify against her attacker is wrenching and fascinating. I admire Gurba’s courage in reliving both the trauma of her attack and its aftermath. ![]() To read Gurba’s experience is to be confronted by the sexual violence many women face every day. This last scene stuck with me because I think it demonstrates the central challenge put to readers by the meanness presented in this book. There also was the meanness of indifference, like when doctors refused to take her sister’s eating disorder seriously, or when the middle school teacher chose to look the other way when she was being molested by a boy sitting next to her in class. ![]() There is the overt meanness of the world itself, from the rapist who attacks her and bludgeons to death a woman named Sophia, to the ‘race war’ in her elementary school that ends when Gurba and other Mexican children are made to apologize to white children, who used a racial slur, for making them cry after calling out their racism. There is Gurba’s sarcastic meanness to friend and foe. ![]() But the second trip through, it came back to me, particularly the meanness. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |