Reader with a Cause discussion

We think that some people will be quick to point to Amy and say “See??! All women are crazy” or “Women are crazy and ‘just as violent or controlling’ as men!” While we always recognize that men are victims of domestic violence, this is a troubling perspective, since statistics* clearly document that violence is perpetrated predominantly by men against women. This may make for an interesting, chilling read – but it’s not an accurate reflection of domestic violence in real life for many reasons.

It’s almost as if this book solidifies a concept that is clearly the exception and not the rule – yet it’s getting a lot of attention** largely probably due to the “female violence” angle. The author has said that she writes her books because “[men] have a vocabulary for sex and violence that women just don’t,” that her books give people the space to talk about female violence, both physical and mental.

Amy’s (view spoiler)[false rape claim at the end of the book (hide spoiler)] upholds a very dangerous and damaging concept that constantly gets bandied about in popular culture (season three of Veronica Mars, The Life of David Gale [film], Wild Things [film], Atonement [book & film], season four of South Park, Under the Dome [book], and many, many more), thus contributing to a rape culture that disproportionately demonizes and disbelieves victims.

But what do you think? What did you think about while you were reading this book?


* (1) Across all types of violence, the majority of female victims reported that their perpetrators were male. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention...
(2) Nonfatal intimate partner violence is most frequently committed by individuals of opposite genders…on average from 2001 to 2005 - about 96% of females experiencing nonfatal intimate partner violence were victimized by a male and about 3% reported that the offender was another female. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/...
(3) Nearly 75 percent of family violence victims are female, and nearly 75 percent of family violence perpetrators are male. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv...

** Did you hear there’s a movie coming out this fall? We have another thread going all about that!

I was annoyed and terrified with the idea that people would walk away and think that this is what domestic violence looks like. That it's what women, in general, are capable of. There ware way too many misconceptions about this floating around.

As a longtime advocate for survivors of domestic violence, I cringed when I read this book. Victims of domestic violence have so long not been believed and I worry that people will read this book and think that they all make it up as Amy did. Maybe it's not fair to ask fiction writers to champion a cause but it's been hard for me because we have worked so many years to get the general public to both understand and have empathy for victims of DV.

I agree with the general sentiments here regarding the portrayal of domestic violence, particularly after my last read (The Sabi) where domestic violence is shown to cause such trauma on girl children, which follows them into adulthood, sometimes with devastating consequences.

Writers do have power and perhaps they could use it to change the world for the better

Rene, I wondered about the same thing, but after I finished the book, I really thought that surely people wouldn't think that because this character, Amy, is so unbelievable that surely no one could think that anyone would really be able to be so devious, having perfect insight into the future to prepare for every eventuality. This is also why I ultimately didn't like the book. It was clever but the characters were just unreal.