Tough to read, but important. Chanel writes honestly and in detail about the Stanford assault, the trial, and the aftermath. She has great things to say about victim blaming, rape culture, privilege, and the justice system - but it's really anger inducing as well. She highlights the differences between how she was treated by the system and the judge and the lawyers, and how Brock Turner was - the types of questions he was asked, the benefit of the doubt given to him, the effect that a guilty verdict would have on his future. Even though she "won" and the jury found him guilty, which never happens, his sentencing was a joke. Victims must be perfect people who must think clearly and behave rationally to be believed, but certain white men are above the law - good people who are misconstrued as criminals (but how different would it be if a 19 year old hispanic male who wasn't in college committed the same conduct?). You can hear how difficult it is for her to lay this all out, but she is not driven by emotion here. In fact, she's probably too understanding.

Chanel talks about not just the assault, but about being a woman in modern society. One of the most memorable passages for me was about how her boyfriend asked her to stop sending recordings of Chanel being cat called while walking down the street because the videos made him angry - and how unfair it was that he could unsubscribe from the videos, where she didn't have that option. She talks about how walking down the street is like being tossed bombs, and having to frantically diffuse each one not knowing which wire would cause it to detonate. Women have to learn how to dismantle the bombs. But these things don't happen when you walk with a man. It's not a solution to just stop walking down the street, and it's not fair. Why does society assume answer is always yes and it’s the woman's job to revoke the agreement? Why are they allowed to touch us until we physically fight them off? Why is the door open until we have to slam it shut?