GENRE: Nonfiction/Memoir
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: B
SYNOPSIS: A dark romance evolves between a high schooler and her English teacher in this breathtakingly powerful memoir about a young woman who must learn to rewrite her own story.
“Have you ever read Lolita?” So begins seventeen-year-old Alisson’s metamorphosis from student to lover and then victim. A lonely and vulnerable high school senior, Alisson finds solace only in her writing—and in a young, charismatic English teacher, Mr. North.
Mr. North gives Alisson a copy of Lolita to read, telling her it is a beautiful story about love. The book soon becomes the backdrop to a connection that blooms from a simple crush into a forbidden romance. But as Mr. North’s hold on her tightens, Alisson is forced to evaluate how much of their narrative is actually a disturbing fiction.
In the wake of what becomes a deeply abusive relationship, Alisson is faced again and again with the story of her past, from rereading Lolita in college to working with teenage girls to becoming a professor of creative writing. It is only with that distance and perspective that she understands the ultimate power language has had on her—and how to harness that power to tell her own true story.
Being Lolita is a stunning coming-of-age memoir that shines a bright light on our shifting perceptions of consent, vulnerability, and power. This is the story of what happens when a young woman realizes her entire narrative must be rewritten—and then takes back the pen to rewrite it.
MY THOUGHTS: The twenty-six-year-old dark-haired and green-eyed English teacher, Nick North, was emotionally abusive and childish, throwing tantrums during arguments. Nothing sexual happened between them, not even kissing, until after she turned 18 and graduated high school, except one conversation about bra and penis size while she was seventeen. I don't feel like she took any responsibility for her part in their inappropriate two-year relationship that started in 2001, when she was less than four months away from her eighteenth birthday, and continued while she was away at college five hours away.
I'd have liked to have known more about her teenage depression, suicide and cutting but she basically just glossed over it as well as glossed over a later rape. How did you make your parents aware of your depression in middle school? When did the cutting start? We weren't made aware of any childhood abuse so I'd like to know what she thought brought on the cutting. I don't recall her mentioning depression while Nick was in her life so I'm assuming it didn't get worse.
She made a couple of comments that really bother me. She said, on page 143, that "for all intents and purposes" she was still "pubescent" and was a "child" when she was eighteen. No, ma'am, you're a legal adult at eighteen years of age. Seems like she's calling him a pedophile, which he wasn't, at least not in her situation. Who knows what he was doing with other underage girls. On page 147 she said that once during sex with Nick it was painful but she didn't tell him to stop and that she later told herself his not stopping was her fault. She's right; it is her fault he didn't stop because he didn't know she wanted him to, so why even make that comment? On page 190, she said that at a party her first weekend at college she was drunk and had sex with a guy. She said she "didn't understand" what she'd done. How could you not?
I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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