You Need to Read: Lucky

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 she struggles for understanding ("After telling the hard facts to anyone, from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes"); as her dazed family and friends sometimes bungle their efforts to provide comfort and support; and as, ultimately, she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker's arrest and conviction.

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."

Lucky

Alice Sebold

If you read Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" you will absolutely fall in love with Lucky. I got a worn copy in a Bun Trade, and have been devouring it for the last two weeks.

I'll be blunt, it's a touchy topic. It could be triggering, yes. However, it could also be the most inspiring book you've read, following Alice's journey through healing while dealing with the legal system. It's a difficult read, absolutely, but if you can get through the first chapter, you'll be fine (and hooked so good luck trying to put it down if you've made it that far.)

Keep in mind, the story is not just about the rape, it's about her family, boys, school, society and everything else an 18 year old female is experiencing in some way or another.

It's enchanting, devastating, and honestly something all girls should read. I read it at times, page by page, putting it away over and over, to close my eyes and let it really sink in. The bravery that Alice possessed to pursue a trial after such a violent crime, speak out and publish an entire memoir on her ordeal is absolutely amazing, and mind boggling at the same time.

Sebold is such a talented writer, you cannot possibly find a book with more emotions crammed into it, and you'll never find a better rape witness than Alice Sebold.

Links:

Bunz Trading Zone Halifax:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bunzhalifax/?ref=bookmarks

Good Reads:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82970.Lucky

Dartmouth Book Exchange:

http://dartmouthbookexchange.ca