Sexual Assault

Starred review from December 15, 2016
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* In her impassioned, thorough, forthright guide to the increasingly contentious arena of sexual consent, Ghafoerkhan draws a firm line: Unwanted contact, such as kissing or groping, is . . . sexual assault. Of course, the possibilities extend beyond disturbing to the unimaginably horrific. However, she takes care to dismiss the standard rape script (entailing a deserted locale and a violent stranger), driving home the point that, in the majority of sexual assault cases, the perpetrator is someone the victim knows. A wealth of deeply moving first-person accounts brings home the repercussions of unwanted sexual contact. While mustering a staggering array of statistics, the author keeps the focus personal (the prevailing voice is second person) and restorative as well as preventative. Healing' from a sexual assault isn't always possible in the traditional sense, she notes in a chapter devoted to coping with the aftermath, which is why many professionals use the word recovery. The closing segment moves on to Activism: I call it from pain to purpose, says one survivor. The book's price precludes slipping a copy into every last high-school lockerthough statistically, one out of every six U.S. women will face rape at some point in their livesbut it certainly deserves a place in every school library.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)