📚 Eight books I recommend to every survivor of sexual violence

& my favourite quote from each

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When I was in the depths of my trauma, I read a lot of books about trauma. Fiction, nonfiction, self-help, poetry.. I consumed it all. It helped me to feel less alone knowing that other people had been through the same things I had, and still found a way to keep going. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was practicing bibliotherapy, “the use of reading as an ameliorative adjunct to therapy”.

For me, reading was an anchor inside the whirlpool of trauma. On bad days, I could pick up a book and visit someone else’s mind for the day. I found peace in the comforting rhythms of narrative. Reading helped to reset my brain, to break an anxious thought loop, and gave me enough of a pause that I felt I could try again tomorrow. It was a safe place to detach from my life, somewhere to hide when I couldn’t imagine going on. 

Most importantly, immersing myself in these stories helped me understand sexual violence as a systemic issue, not a personal one. It helped me to situate my suffering within a patriarchal system of violence and oppression. Reading helped me to stay connected to the world, to feel like I was still part of the human race even when I was struggling to survive. 

Here are eight books I recommend to survivors of sexual violence, along with my favorite quotes from each. This post is for paid subscribers, but everyone can access the first few recommendations. I’ve included a mix of memoir, novels and self-help books. What they have in common is the profound impact that had on me and my recovery. Reading about sexual violence isn’t always easy, so please take a break or seek support if it becomes too much. Reading requires time and concentration, things I didn’t have when my C-PTSD symptoms were at their most severe. Even if you don’t feel able to pick up a book right now, I hope you’ll find some glimmers of hope in the wide array of survivor stories that are available to you whenever the time is right. Remember: it always feels like you’re the only one, but you never are. 

Trauma & Recovery by Judith Herman

This ground-breaking book is the seminal text on trauma and recovery. First published in 1992, it provides an essential political and psychological framework for our experiences as survivors. It’s a dense book, which I read in short increments over many years. Sometimes, the scientific lens felt overly objectifying and overwhelming but I’m glad I persevered. This book gave me a deep and comprehensive understanding of how my mind and body had been impacted by sexual violence, and what recovery might look like. 

“Traumatic events destroy the sustaining bonds between individual and community. Those who have survived learn that their sense of self, of worth, of humanity, depends upon a feeling of connection with others. The solidarity of a group provides the strongest protection against terror and despair, and the strongest antidote to traumatic experience. Trauma isolates; the group re-creates a sense of belonging. Trauma shames and stigmatizes; the group bears witness and affirms. Trauma degrades the victim; the group exalts her. Trauma dehumanizes the victim; the group restores her humanity.”

Unbound by Tarana Burke                    

The publisher wanted Tarana Burke to hire a ghostwriter for her first book, but Tarana refused. I’m so glad she did. This powerful memoir charts her own personal story alongside the rise of the movement she founded. I owe a lot to Tarana. Her powerful empathy, her thought leadership and her boundless belief in survivors have kept me going through many difficult seasons. If you’ve only heard about the Me Too movement through the media, I urge you to learn about it from the woman who brought it to life. 

“Maybe community creates courage. What if courage creates community? Maybe empathy creates courage. How can you express empathy towards others if you can’t empathize with your own self? Is the core of healing empathy and courage?”

Edinburgh by

Alexander Chee

Twelve-year-old Fee is a gifted Korean-American soprano who is sexually abused by the director of his choir. We follow Fee and his friends as they process the grief, shame, and pain that linger long after their abuser is imprisoned. Edinburgh is a searing novel that became even more powerful for me when I read one of Chee’s subsequent essays. He described receiving a note from an imprisoned pedophile who said he had never understood the trauma he’d caused until he read Edinburgh. This essay was in Chee’s collection ‘How to Write An Autobiographical Novel,’ which is one of my favorite collections on the writerly process. I also got a lot from this conversation about how fiction helped Chee to face the reality of his own abuse. That’s perhaps not a surprise given that I wrote a whole novel about trauma, and that writing process completely changed how I carry my pain. 

“The music we are singing has been sung by hundreds of years by boys. I wonder if God expects to hear it rising off the Earth, like the bloom of a perennial flower. Or if it is a standing challenge, for us to come together and sing for him. Eric tells us in the old days of the castrati, elite Italian choristers who gelded themselves to keep their high clear voices. Some boys hold their crotches when that story is told, but I understand. I could want it that badly, to keep a voice.”