Asking For It is a book I picked due to seeing a lot of twitter attention to the book. I'm a sucker for being pulled into buying books that are trending.
This book if you didn't already know is about rape which is a tough topic to write and read about. It shows how quickly social media and can influence peoples judgement and decisions.
To start with, I found it difficult to work out which character was which. They were all portrayed very similarly with little detail. The further into the book, characters disappeared into the back ground and a manageable amount of characters took the lime light.
I didn't connect with the main characters at all. I'm not sure if this is because they are younger than me (in their late teens), whether too little information and detail was given about them, or whether I didn't like how self obsessed, vain and competitive the girls were with each other.
I'm disappointed that the story is told only by the female character, Emma's point of view. Although it is told well and is harrowing at times, I would have preferred to have the male characters, family and police point of view as well.
There is a huge gap between the incident and the conclusion phase which disappointed me. I wanted to know the knitty gritty information about the realisation of the rape and the emotions and aftermath that came with it; all of this seemed to be missed out. The timeframe in which this book is written is realistic in the way that it was years rather than weeks before justice could be served; as it would be in true life.
There is no real ending. No court case or police investigation to lay the incident to rest. We also didn't get a glimpse into Emma's life post incident when she started to put her life back together. It ended very suddenly without a huge amount of explanation.
I feel that all late teenagers despite what gender they are should read this book and consider their points of view on this debatable subject. I personally don't think I'll be reading this one again as I didn't connect with the story at all, despite being interested in the topics discussed.
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