Book Review: Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl
By: Ferdinand S Flower
Tags: Rape, Book, Sexual Assault, Survivor, Mental Health

Book Review: Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl

An in-depth review on the memoir by author Jeannie Vanasco by a fellow survivor, and why I believe it could be very beneficial for other survivors too. Ferdinand’s Flower Follow Nov 20, 2020 · 7 min read

Confrontation, a parallel

A year ago, my rapist found me on Facebook and decided to message and friend me. It had been years since the rape, a single night in college with someone I had just met, and I honestly never thought I would ever hear from him again. At first, I left him on read and he didn’t pursue a conversation any further. About a month later, I decided to confront him (virtually, in a Facebook message) and I told him I didn’t want to have anything to do with him and that I had spent the last four years of my life trying to forget about him completely.

He didn’t understand my anger, said he wasn’t sure what he had done wrong, and so I told him. I reminded him that I hadn’t wanted to have sex, that I said no, and other details of that night he seemed to forget. In the end all I got was, “I’m really sorry you feel the way you do.”

I can only speak for myself and my experience as a survivor, but I do believe we all hope that one day, we will hear our attackers say they’re sorry for what they did. We hope that they regret what they have done, that they have suffered emotionally and morally because of it, that it has changed their life as much as it has changed ours. Most of us never receive that.

About the book

Jeannie Vanasco in her memoir titled Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl, goes the distance for herself and for other survivors out there to try and get this closure. Fourteen years after being raped, still haunted by nightmares, she contacts her rapist and starts the conversation. Her rapist was one of her closest friends at the time, and she remains conflicted throughout the memoir because of this. She remembers him as a friend, someone she shared laughs and feelings with, but also and almost separately remembers the night he brought her to his basement room and raped her.

There are four parts to this memoir, all of which in the first person reflecting her own thoughts at the time of this writing. The first section is mainly her deciding whether or not to write this memoir, how she wants it to be received by readers and of course, how, when and if she should contact her former friend and rapist. I find it interesting that she wrestles so much about how this book will reflect on him, how her readers will think of him and that in general, she doesn’t want them to see him as this terrible guy. She wants her readers to see the friendship that was.

This section and the second is part transcribed phone conversations between them, after he agrees to have these conversations and to be written about. He says he wants to help, that it is the very least he can do. He appears to feel very guilty about what he has done to her, especially because of the friendship they shared, but his wording also eludes to wanting a degree of separation between himself and what he did. In between these transcripts she lays out her thoughts, describes conversations with her friends about her conversations with her rapist, and you get to hear the honest truth of what she’s thinking and feeling throughout the writing of this memoir. The last section, like the others in structure, they meet in person to continue the conversation.

Throughout the book she draws parallels between her former friend, her first boyfriend who was extremely emotionally abusive, and another experience of rape she endured after that of the book subject. The comparisons she makes between these relationships and her feelings around them are eye opening. She didn’t write a book and contact her ex-boyfriend or the other rapist, she contacted this man who used to be her friend for a reason and she wants the reader to see that.

My thoughts

While our experiences are not all that alike in detail, I empathize with her as she struggles to call what happened to her rape. To use the word rape is hard, not only does it brand the person who committed it as a criminal but it brands oneself as a victim. For years I dealt with the same struggle even though many would classify it as rape without thinking twice (except for my rapist, apparently). I still do sometimes.

Hearing Vanasco’s inner thoughts and feelings was like hearing my own, but for the first time. I quickly realized that despite the differences in our experiences, our feelings were largely the same even if I had trouble putting words to them before. It was like I was reading a book I had written, like I was reading my own diary and this was so satisfying I cannot even begin to explain.

I can only compare it to not being able to find the word you want to use in a sentence, despite people’s best efforts to help and provide you with some, you just can’t place your finger on it. Then, hours later when it no longer matters to anyone but you, it comes to you at random, satisfaction and relief following afterwards.

For victims of any crime or hardship, knowing there are others out there that feel the way you do, think the way you do, and finally realizing that you really aren’t alone, is like magic. I have been able to do a lot of healing and reckoning with my past throughout quarantine (too much spare time and not enough distractions I suppose), but nothing I have done so far has been quite as helpful as this.

One last thing…

I can understand why survivors might not want to read this, or why they might not like it. It can be triggering, and was for me at times, and on top of that it gives a rapist a voice. When I virtually confronted my rapist, all I wanted to hear him say was that he knows what he did was wrong and regrets it, that it has affected him and how he lives his life, as his actions have affected me. We don’t want to hear about how their lives have been so far, we don’t want to hear their side of the story, we want them to understand how much we hurt and we want them to feel it too. This book gives us just that, a look inside the head of someone that committed this same awful act, and a basic understanding of what went through his head.

I don’t believe this book is really about closure at all, although she definitely hopes to find it, or about the important question she poses: “is it possible for a good person to commit a terrible act?”

I believe this book stresses the importance of having these kinds of conversations. We can’t always have them with our rapist, who are not usually so forthcoming, but we can with fellow survivors. We can have these conversations about rape and sexual assault, about the #MeToo movement with our friends and family and those people throughout the day that ask us “what are you working on,” “what are you thinking about,” and “how are you?” Our answers don’t have to be “good,” “just fine,” and “not much going on here” because if we stick to these kinds of answers, we perpetuate the problem and our own suffering.

Read this book because you’re a survivor and you deserve to not feel alone. Read this book because your loved one is a survivor and you want to learn an inkling of what they are feeling. Read this book because you assaulted or raped someone and you should know a little about what a survivor goes through afterwards.

Read this book to start a conversation, and to get one step closer to ending the need for it.