I feel bad for not liking this book more than I did. I felt awful for her while reading it, but this seemed to be a book more for her own therapy than anyone else reading it. Which is great, I hope she's doing better, but it wasn't an overly enjoyable read. Usually with books like this there are cowriters or ghost writers since the person involved isn't a writer themselves, but I believe she wrote this. It's a cohesive story, but the writing itself was incredibly bland and basic.

One thing that did make me uncomfortable is that she wrote this basically ignoring the fact that the five boys who were convicted of her rape had their convictions overturned. She did include a few bits that looked more like a lawyer covering so she couldn't be sued, but that was it. She also said that it wasn't about racism, since this is a case that had garnered much attention in the media. That seemed incredibly dismissive. No, it wasn't about racism for her. Her getting raped wasn't about racism. But for the five teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of her rape and assault, it was very much about racism.

I didn't really gain anything from this book and it's probably only rated as high as it is because I'd feel too bad to rate it any lower.

Oh my god this terrified me. This book filled me with so much anxiety that I had to keep putting it down to breathe. The first two thirds of this book were great for me. I loved the way Clarissa was written. It felt so incredibly realistic. I don't know if Clair Kendal has ever been through anything like this, but it wouldn't surprise me if she had experienced being stalked before. It did lose me a bit toward the end and the climax. That was probably all that kept it from getting five stars. For me, the climax was significantly less scary to read than the rest of the book. But all in all, I would highly recommend this book. It made me not want to leave my house for a week after I read it.

It was okay. The writing was a bit meh for me because it felt like the author was trying really hard to make it sound literary. I couldn't really relate to it because for whatever reason it felt soulless and distant. It's nothing I could exactly put my finger on, but I felt nothing for this book or any of the characters. The story itself was okay and I didn't dislike it, so it received a bare minimum three stars from me, which still feels kind of generous.

This was a reread for me (I listened to the audiobook), and it didn't hold up as well as My Sister's Keeper did. I loved this so much the first time I read it, and now it was okay, but nothing special. I did enjoy it, but I found so many more flaws this time. A lot of things rubbed me the wrong way and I disliked more of the characters (including Jack). The very end seemed more for shock value than anything else. I did still like it, but I was disappointed that I didn't like it as much as I remember.

I found this book really enlightening. No, it's not something you want to read for amazing writing, but the subject matter and the way she spoke about it really touched me. She speaks so frankly of all her flaws and mistakes, and I'm sure she received lots of hate for this book. It was a really brave thing to do. She doesn't try to pretend she was better than she was, and owns up to everything she did. No, she's not likable for most of this. She was struggling with mental illness that changed who she was. The fact that she was so straight forward about everything and really explained what she went through and what she was thinking made this book for me. I really enjoyed it and hope she's doing better now.

Also, this is minor thing, but I do like that she made a point to be supportive of sex workers. It's honestly such a rare thing and I was so appreciative of it.

This took me longer to read than it should have, but I really struggled to get into this book. Superficially I found it interesting, but on a deeper level it felt a bit too contrived. The third person present tense combo didn't work for me either. All around I was disappointed I didn't fall in love with this book because the story itself was interesting.

This was such an amazing book. It was genuinely difficult to put down and I read about 250 of its 300 pages in one sitting. It was so heartbreaking and touching, and it made me tear up, which I so rarely do with nonfiction. Her story was incredible and it's amazing that she managed to save so many documents of her ordeal.

It's a very unique story in that she was a U-boat (a Jew living in Nazi territory passing themself off as a German) and I don't believe I've read any nonfiction specifically about them. And I found the writing in this to be wonderful. I don't have high expectations for the writing in memoirs about people who aren't writers by trade (even when they're co-written or ghostwritten), but this was so lovely. It drew me in while remaining entirely unobtrusive so as not to distract from the story.

I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in the time period or even as a first attempt at nonfiction. It's a fantastic book and I adored it.

I'm baffled by all the positive reviews on this book. It only barely reached two stars for me, and even then I feel it may be quite generous. I didn't like pretty much anything about this book. The dialogue was unrealistic, the writing was the very definition of telling instead of showing, the characters were annoying, and the casual sexism/ableism/etc was ridiculous to the point that I checked when this book was published. When was the last time "cripple" was an acceptable word to use? Not in 2015 when this came out.

There were a lot of gross tropes in this book that induce eye rolling individually, but combined just made for such an uncomfortable reading experience. Mentally ill people as crazed serial killers, men who can't cook, overprotective "macho" men, etc. In addition to being incredibly heteronormative and stating that asexuality is the result of either a hormone imbalance or trauma. I was not down.

I didn't actually read the whole description on the front flap until about twenty pages into the book, but that was when I figured out the ending. Knowing the ending so far in advance and knowing you're going to hate it is an incredibly unpleasant reading experience.

I thought this was a lovely book. It's a mother/daughter multigenerational story that follows a whole family post world war two. It offered many insights into the culture of Jewish immigrants in Canada post Holocaust as well as family dynamic. It was a very slow book, but I felt that worked to the story's favor and allowed for deeper development of the characters. It was just a heartbreaking story and I'm really glad I picked it up.

It reminded me a lot of The Unseen World by Liz Moore, so I'd really recommend it to anyone who enjoyed that book.

I listened to the audiobook as a reread, the first time I'd read it since high school, and I was a bit disappointed. It didn't hold up quite as well as I would have liked it to. Some of the discussion around Trixie's rape and rape in general made me very uncomfortable (especially in regards to the victim being ruined). I still enjoyed it okay, but I loved this book as a teenager and wished I could still love it today.