Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2021: Adult Nonfiction

Created on January 24, 2022, 2:42 pm

Last Updated January 24, 2022, 2:54 pm

April 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Coordinated by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, this annual campaign is designed to raise awareness and educate the public on the prevention of sexual assault, harassment, and abuse. In support of this month-long campaign, below you’ll find a list of books and resources that highlight stories of survival, avenues for conversation and understanding, and direct support. Title suggestions and resources were curated by Health & Wellness Librarian Rose Barnes, Collection Management Librarian Jenna Friebel, and Director of Public Social Services & Public Safety Robert Simmons, with input from Pillars Community Health.

1) Know my name: a memoir

Author

Miller, Chanel

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting "Emily Doe" on Stanford's campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral, was translated globally, and read on the floor of Congress. It inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Now Miller reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power...

2) Things we didn't talk about when I was a girl: a memoir

Author

Vanasco, Jeannie

Description

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"Jeannie Vanasco has had the same nightmare since she was a teenager. She startles awake, saying his name. It is always about him: one of her closest high school friends, a boy named Mark. A boy who raped her. When her nightmares worsen, Jeannie decides after fourteen years of silence to reach out to Mark. He agrees to talk on the record and meet in person. “Its the least I can do,” he says. Jeannie details her friendship with Mark before and...

3) Missoula: rape and the justice system in a college town

Author

Krakauer, Jon

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Large Print

Description

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Acquaintance rape is a crime like no other. Unlike burglary or embezzlement or any other felony, the victim often comes under more suspicion than the alleged perpetrator. This is especially true if the victim is sexually active, if she had been drinking prior to the assault--and if the man she accuses plays on a popular sports team. For a woman in this situation, the pain of being forced into sex against her will is only the beginning of her ordeal....

4) What we talk about when we talk about rape

Author

Abdulali, Sohaila

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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"Drawing on her own experience, her work with hundreds of survivors as the head of a rape crisis center in Boston, and three decades of grappling with rape as a feminist intellectual and writer, Abdulali tackles some of our thorniest questions about rape, articulating the confounding way we account for who gets raped and why-and asking how we want to raise the next generation. In interviews with survivors from around the world we hear moving personal...

5) Hunger: a memoir of (my) body

Author

Gay, Roxane

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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"New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as 'wildly undisciplined, ' Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she casts an insightful...

6) A false report: a true story of rape in America

Author

Miller, T. Christian

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Presents the true story of two detectives who teamed up to discern the truth about a case involving a teen who was charged with falsely reporting a rape, an investigation that revealed the work of a serial rapist in multiple states.

7) Asking for it: the alarming rise of rape culture--and what we can do about it

Author

Harding, Kate

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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"From Congressman Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" gaffe to the high school rapists of Steubenville, Ohio, to the furor at Vanderbilt, sexual violence has been so prominent in recent years that the feminist term "rape culture" has finally entered the mainstream. But what, exactly, is it? And how do we change it? In Asking for It, Kate Harding answers those questions in the same blunt, bullshit-free voice that has made her a powerhouse feminist blogger....

8) Girl in the woods: a memoir

Author

Matis, Aspen

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook

Description

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"Girl in the Woods is Aspen Matis's exhilarating true-life adventure of hiking from Mexico to Canada--a coming-of-age story, a survival story, and a triumphant story of overcoming emotional devastation. On her second night of college, Aspen was raped by a fellow student. Overprotected by her parents who discouraged her from telling of the attack, Aspen was confused and ashamed. Dealing with a problem that has sadly become all too common on college...

9) A stolen life: a memoir

Author

Dugard, Jaycee Lee

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD

Description

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The memoir of Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped on June 10, 1991 from a school bus stop within sight of her home in Tahoe, California, when she was 11 years old. She was held prisoner by convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy Garrido. She was held captive by the Garridos for over eighteen years, all the while living in a tent on the Garrido property. During her captivity she gave birth to two children fathered by Garrido. She reappeared...

10) Betrayal: the crisis in the Catholic Church

Description

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With this exposé, the Boston Globe presents the single most comprehensive account of the cover-ups, hush money and manipulation used by the Catholic Church to keep its history of sexual abuse secret.

11) Lucky

Author

Sebold, Alice

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD

Description

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In this memoir, Alice Sebold reveals how her life was transformed when at age 18 she was raped and beaten in a park near her college campus.

12) We believe you: survivors of campus sexual assault speak out

Author

Clark, Annie E

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

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"From young activists at the forefront of the movement to end sexual assault on college campuses, a collection of survivor stories that will connect with students and inform and inspire us all Across the U.S. student activists are exposing a pervasive cover-up of sexual assault on college campuses. Every day more survivors come forward. But other survivors choose not to. We Believe You elevates the stories the headlines about this issue have been...

13) We should all be feminists

Author

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi

Series

A Vintage Short

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Offers an updated definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness.

14) I know why the caged bird sings

Author

Angelou, Maya

Series

New windmill

Formats:

Book, Audiobook Cassette, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Maya Angelou's autobiographical account of her childhood and early youth in 1930s America is an evocation of a black girl's struggle against her oppressors.

15) I will survive: the African-American guide to healing from sexual assault and abuse

Author

Robinson, Lori

16) Written on the body: letters from trans and non-binary survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence

Description

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"An anthology of powerfully honest and intimate letters written by trans and non-binary survivors of sexual violence, offering support and guidance to fellow survivors with additional resources for allies and professionals."--Publisher website.

17) Surviving the silence: Black women's stories of rape

Author

Pierce-Baker, Charlotte

18) Excavation: a memoir

Author

Ortiz, Wendy C

Description

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Wendy C. Ortiz was an only child and a bookish, insecure girl living with alcoholic parents in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Her relationship with a charming and deeply flawed private school teacher fifteen years her senior appeared to give her the kind of power teenagers wish for, regardless of consequences. Her teacher -- now a registered sex offender -- continually encouraged her passion for writing while...