Dark Chapter by Winnie M. LiMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Vivian is used to traveling on her own--she's an Taiwanese-American living in London and studied abroad in Ireland years ago. When she's invited back to Northern Ireland to celebrate the ten year anniversary of the end of the Troubles, she thinks nothing of going for a hike by herself outside of Belfast. But a stupid and doped up 15-year-old Traveler decides she wants to have sex with him. With horrific and graphic detail, Vivian puts up with a lot of shit after her assault, but works with the Northern Ireland legal system to testify against her attacker, and, if there is such a thing as a happy ending to a crappy event, this book has it.
Obviously this book hit home to me, since I travel abroad alone a lot. I've never been one to hike on my own, but I've wandered down Belfast streets after midnight by myself plenty of times. The chapters from the point-of-view of the rapist were well researched--I felt like I understood (ugh) why he turned out the way he did. IQ and family. Ugh. But the way Vivian is treated by the doctors, nurses, and treatment centers after the attack is sad. We have to come up with a better way to treat assaulted people.
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