Nobody's Victim is an unflinching look at a hidden world most people don't know exists - one of stalking, blackmail and sexual violence, online and off - and the incredible story of how one lawyer, determined to fight back, turned her own hell into a revolution.
I rarely find myself browsing the feminist section in bookshops - although I don't even know if there's one, if not, it definitely should! - but now that I'm officially an adult (the thought of it still stings) and a woman living in a messed up society and who knows what it feels like to be cat-called in the streets from men who could easily be grandparents, I knew I had to jump straight into this book.
Mostly, it was because I wanted to inform myself, to have my face slapped with a reality I only ever see on tv or watch in movies but that feels so distant from myself that sometimes I even wonder if that's all really happening. Whenever the news shows us another woman being killed by her ex or one who has taken her own life because of shame, because of fear of being judged and looked in a certain way, I always flinch, it pains me to see that and to see it so often. But I never quite grasped it. Until this book knocked me out.
To be honest, I was mostly drawn by the beautiful, bold cover that screams READ ME, I'M IMPORTANT! but I knew it wasn't going to be an easy ride. And it certainly wasn't.
Carrie Goldberg, the author, doesn't sugar-coat anything. She slaps you in the face with the truth, with facts, so that you feel disgusted and in pain and mad at a system that doesn't exist. Or, if it does exist, it's not on the right side (most of the time).
Her writing is brutally honest, it's never too boring to read whenever she entertains you with law details and things that we don't know, she informs you and makes you aware of everything. It makes you think of the way we use social media, the fact that even though it doesn't look like a gun, the Internet is definitely a weapon and if in wrong hands, could really cause some damage.
It opens your eyes on different kinds of abuse - not only the physical one - on why we need to talk about it more, why we need to teach kids to never become those people who take what's not theirs and why we need more teachers facing the truth of what happens on school ground, those that won't look the other way whenever a girl reports an assault.
This book made me angry. Furious, even. Mad at the thought that if one of my gay friends signs up on a dating app, there's a chance that he will meet a psychopath he won't be able to brush away, that he will possibly want revenge and starts harassing him, ruining his life forever. And what if my friend is not that strong? What if I won't be able to help him? What then?
This book made me scared. It made me hyper-aware of the danger I'm putting myself into whenever I'm leaving the house. Whenever I'm falling in love. Whenever I'm having sex. Is he filming? Is he taking pictures? Should we drink? Should I not? What if there's something in my water? What if I won't come back home? Could I be strong enough to face the worst that could happen? What could happen? What if he's planning something? What if... What if... What if...
I'm going mad.
From the little girl getting assaulted on school ground and suspended because she reported the attack to her teacher, to the guy who used a dating app to find romance and ended up with a bunch of men sent to his house and office for sex. Carrie Goldberg spills it all, story after story, one more heartbreaking and disgusting than the other. She doesn't shy away from details, she tells you all, she opens up about her story, too which doesn't make things better. It only makes it worse because that story will leave you scarred and I'm so in awe of her, her courage to move on. To live through it. To go back and re-live it all to put it pen to paper.
I didn't love this book. It's not because it wasn't good but how could you possibly read something so important and personal and judge it? These women are part of my life now, scarred in me forever, I can't just close the book and say "oh, I loved it!" Because I didn't.
If anything, it made me grow a third pair of eyes (added to the second I already grew over the years) that keep looking for that beast that decides that putting his hand on my ass is fine because I'm wearing tight jeans so I'm basically asking him to do so. I've grown eyes and ears to listen to old men's conversations outside bars while I walk in front of them. I've grown eyes for my own safety and others' so that girl can go to school undisturbed while listening to Harry Styles on her headphones, unaware of the eyes that keep looking at her, the disgusting smiles she has caused, the hand over their jeans to satisfy a momentary thought.
Nobody's Victim doesn't want you to feel bad for these women, it demands your attention, it wants you to put a hand over their shoulders and see them, truly see them and stand by them.
It demands your attention on today's world, on how women - but also men! - and girls are unsafe, how the system often protects the offenders instead of finding a way to give people who have been hurt, a chance to be heard and protected. To have justice for what they've been through, what they didn't ask for.
It also tells you and assure you that there are people willing to help you, that will fight so that you can sleep at night, that will stand by your side and believe that from something so horrible, something good can always grow.
Now, can you hear them screaming? All those women, from past to present to future. Can you hear them marching in the streets, their lungs out: "THE TIME TO BE THE VICTIMS IS OVER. NOW, IT'S TIME TO FIGHT!"
Nobody's Victim is riveting and urgent. Impossible to put down.
*Thank you Little, Brown for sending this book my way.
*Nobody's Victim contains details of sexual assault and psychological abuse. If you're sensitive to these topics please, just know that your mental health is important, too and it should always come first.