Customer Reviews

Where I Stopped

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A sensitive subject to be sure, I was compelled by what an intensely personal trauma this must have been and by the fact that I know someone who had this very experience at the age of fourteen. What stands out in my mind about the impact of the book is that it made time stand still for me while I read of Ms. Ramsey's experience and left an indelible image of how life experiences can alter us psychologically when we least expect it and in profoundly troubling ways. The most troubling of all is the nature of the criminal mind and how our society leaves us at all times in vulnerable positions because criminals do reside among us, prey at their convenience, and do great damage. That a thirteen year old went through a hell of sorts provides a sobering glimpse at the nasty underbelly of the social morass.

Martha Ramsey's account of her rape at the age of thirteen is a remarkably honest and beautifully written memoir of a very bright child caught up in an incomprehensible crime at the tender age when she was just becoming aware of her own body and sexuality. Her adolescent self-consciousness about the sexual nature of the crime, and her parents' and siblings' reactions to the rape, and the perceived lack of support she received from them, were something she had to reconcile later in life, when she began to suspect that she may never have adequately coped with what had happened to her. This is her story of returning to her past, and trying to understand how being raped at the age of thirteen by a stranger in the woods, may have shaped some of the decisions she made, both in her academic life and in her personal life.

Honest, sensitive and moving, this is an important book well worth reading.

I slept through my alarm after staying up all night reading this book in one sitting. Thank you, Martha Ramsey! Your story extends far beyond the physicality of rape and brings readers to the fresh, poetic voice that is yourself recounting your relationship with your family and others. Your shock value poem at 14 is not written by a precocious girl smugly knowing her teacher and classmates will know it's seering but instead by a girl who doesn't really know she's saying "listen." I did. Next stop: Blood Stories.

Martha Ramsey has written an enormously comforting book that does not pretend that the darkness of rape does not exist -- even years after the fact -- but shows the way to finding some peace again. By telling of her own personal battle, not recommending a "strategy" of self-help to others, the story of her survival and search for happiness resonates with truth and hope. She tells of rape and its aftermath honestly and poignantly. This book helped me know that it is possible to take the first steps on a long road to peace. Thank you so much, Martha, for your bravery! You gave me hope again.

excellent personal recounting of a traumatic event that totally reshaped this young woman's life. Perceptive and sensitive.

This is an excellent memoir. It is insightful and truly examines life after rape.