Title: Confessions Of A Teenage Rape Survivor
Author: Holly Dae
Release Date: 16th October 2014
BLURB supplied by Itching For Books
Before she was raped, almost sixteen-year-old Allison Sommer knew exactly what she wanted and was in total control of her life. Get through high school, go to college to appease her dad, somehow stay fit, lithe, and athletic through all the stress and become a professional cheerleader. Normal teenage stuff. Simple. At least it was simple before she was raped.
Now Allison's whole life is out of her control. She can't trust in her own choices, can't rationalize anything anymore, so she just goes through the motions, hoping that eventually she'll go back to normal, can stop pretending. That doesn't happen, especially when she's forced to reveal what happened to her family and closest friends.
On the MTV commercials and reality shows that emphasize that she has nothing to be ashamed of and guide viewers to some website like don't-be-a-victim.comand a support hotline, no one warns her that the aftermath is more difficult than the rape itself, that her family's efforts to be supportive make her feel more alone and confused.
And being raped has more devastating consequences than Allison ever imagined, forcing her to make one of the most difficult decisions she's ever had to make. It should be a no-brainer, everyone says, but being raped makes Allison question everything and everyone she thought she could trust.
Either way, Allison won't let anyone force her to do anything again, not like her rapists did, even if it makes her already difficult enough circumstance more difficult. Uncensored and unflinchingly honest, these are the confessions of a teenage rape survivor.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Holly Dae is a recent college grad with a B.A. in English who, instead of putting on a suit to work at a desk 9-5 for five figures and a lifetime of misery and crushed dreams, decided to write YA novels about the taboos concerning contemporary issues like rape, abortion, drugs, teen pregnancy, and sometimes sex with the hopes that someone will pat her on the back and say she touched their life.
AUTHOR LINKS
EXCERPT
"Are those your
brother's sleeping pills?" Gene asked.
Allison nodded. No use
denying that.
Gene looked at her
again, then at the pills, and then at Allison again. His eyes widened.
"Were you going
to take all of those?" Gene asked in an incredulous tone. He didn't wait
for an answer, already having assumed the worst. "How many have you taken
already?"
Allison opened her
mouth to reply, forgetting that one of the pills was sitting under her tongue.
Gene saw it as she started to try to explain.
"Oh shit! Spit
that out!"
Gene reached across
the counter to squeeze her cheeks and force the pill out her mouth causing
Allison to have two instantaneous reactions. First, she spit out the pill. Second,
she punched Gene straight in the jaw, which caused Gene to let go of her and
grab his face.
"What the—"
Allison gasped as she
shook her hand out. She shouldn't have done that. She didn't mean to do that.
Gene wasn't a rapist. Well, she hoped he wasn't. The guy who asked her for
directions to distract her didn't look like a rapist either. Either way when
Gene grabbed her so suddenly, she couldn't help it.
"I'm sorry,"
she said quickly.
"Are you insane?
What is wrong with you?"
"I didn't mean to
punch you. It was an accident. I swear."
Gene rolled his eyes,
stilling rubbing his jaw. "Not the punch. I probably deserved that for
scaring the hell out of you, grabbing you like that. I'm talking about those
sleeping pills. That many of those things at once can kill you."
Allison blinked. He
thought…
"I wasn't trying
to commit suicide!"
"Could have
fooled me," Gene said sliding the pills off the counter and into his hand.
He threw them down the garbage disposer.
"But I
wasn't," Allison said, heart racing in panic. If Gene thought she was
trying to kill herself, he'd tell her brother, and her brother would tell their
dad, and she'd never be left alone, and she'd have to tell the truth. Then they'd
make a big deal out of it and want her to report it to the police, and the
police would want a description and account of what happened, and then she'd
never be able to forget. "I just wasn't thinking."
"The hell you
weren't," Gene snapped as he snatched the bottle with the remaining pills
off the counter and put them in his pocket.
"I was just so
tired and the bottle said one pill was mild and good for four hours of sleep,
so I decided to take enough to knock me out for a day," Allison tried to
explain.
"Six pills would
have knocked you out all right," Gene said as he began to dial a number into
his phone.
"What are you
doing?" she asked apprehensively.
"Calling your
brother," Gene said and then cursed. "Damn it. I have his phone in my
pocket. Do I have your dad's number in my phone?"
Allison lunged for the
phone. In all likelihood, he probably didn't have her dad's number, but she
didn't want to chance it.
"You can't call
tell them," Allison said grabbing onto the phone.
Gene tried to pull it
out her grasp as he said, "Sure. Not telling your brother and father that
you're suicidal is a great idea."
"I'm not
suicidal."
"Says the girl
who was about to take six sleeping pills," Gene said getting the phone out
of Allison's grip and holding it out of her reach.
Allison all but
tackled him into the counter.
"I told
you!" Allison screamed, exploding in anger. "I'm tired! I just wanted
to go to sleep without the nightmares! You can't… You can't tell them,"
Allison finished, all her anger dissolving as a sob escaped her throat. She
hadn't even noticed she started crying.
She stopped trying to
get the phone then, falling onto the floor as her body shook with sobs of fear
at what Gene would do and anger at herself. When did she
get so weak?
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