Sixteen-year-old Erica Walker is a webcomic artist who wants to fit in at her affluent new high school. Seventeen-year-old Thomas VanBrackel is an aspiring songwriter and reluctant lacrosse goalie who wants out from under his father’s thumb. After their electric first kiss at Saturday’s lacrosse match, Erica and Thomas are both elated to see where their new relationship could take them.
The next morning, however, following a drunken house party, Erica wakes up half-clothed, and discovers words and names drawn in Sharpie in intimate places on her body—names belonging to Thomas’s lacrosse friends, including the boyfriend of Erica’s best friend. Devastated, Erica convinces herself Thomas wasn’t involved in this horrific so-called “prank”…until she discovers Thomas’s name on her skin, too.
Told in alternating viewpoints, Erica seeks to uncover what happened while battling to keep evidence of her humiliation from leaking out, as Thomas grapples with his actions and who he thought he was. Woven throughout, illustrated graphic novel interstitials depict Erica’s alter ego superhero, Erica Strange, whose courage just might help Erica come through to the other side.
READERS BEWARE; the trigger warnings on this book are not a joke, and I'm going to reproduce them here; Sexual assault and abuse, suicide ideation, self harm and attempted suicide, bullying and victim shaming. There are resources at the back and the author urges readers to take breaks if necessary.
Phew. This is not an easy read. The author is not joking about this trigger warnings, and I did have to take a break here and there as I read. I'm glad I stuck with it, but I understand why some readers would have to stop or put it down.
Phew. This is not an easy read. The author is not joking about this trigger warnings, and I did have to take a break here and there as I read. I'm glad I stuck with it, but I understand why some readers would have to stop or put it down.
The book is written from deep inside the minds of our two main characters, Erica and Thomas, and picks up immediately after the infamous party, with characters recalling or discussing things that happened beforehand. The secondary characters run the gamut from concerned bystander, to hanger on, to 'just having a laugh and regrets it afterwards' to actually apparently pyschopathic, and all the variations inbetween. (I'm considering the scale as running from Amber to Zac, to everyone else falling somewhere inbetween.)
Again, I'm astounded that anyone manages to survive high school nowadays, with everything saved onlince and shared at the simple click of a button, and the freedom people feel to be really horrendously horrible to each other online. I'm endlessly upset by the inventive ways people can be awful to each other when they don't have to face up to it, but the more we look at and discuss these things the more we can do to stop them.
Also, this all takes place over four days. That's how quickly someone's life can fall apart. Just four days.
I'm not sure I can say I enjoyed this read, because it really is difficult in spots, but I'm very glad that I stuck with it and got through, and I hope other people will feel the same way about it.
After the Ink Dries publishes on the 20th July 2021. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment