Review: Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl

Title: Things We Didn’t Talk About When I was a Girl: A Memoir

Author: Jeannie Vanasco

Rating: 2/5 stars

Review: I wanted to like this book so much, unfortunately it upset me a lot. Despite my low rating, I cannot state enough how important this book is. For Jeannie Vanasco to tell us her story, of her experiences takes an exceptional amount of courage and strength. Furthermore, it’s so important to have a story like this out in the world because in everything she grapples with she is not alone.

The part that sticks with me the most, and ultimately the reason I can’t justify rating this book any higher, is that the book was very stagnant. By that I mean it started where it ended with no ups or downs in between. While I understand that it’s a work of non-fiction, I was looking for more. I even began thinking about moments in the book that would have made it more impactful. At this point I realized that even though Vanasco addresses mental illness and going to therapy, she also states explicitly multiple times that she refused to talk about the assault in therapy because there were other things. I’m sympathetic to her going through a ton of shit in her life but this was a book about dealing with her assault.

The second most sticky feeling was that the title of the book and the content of the book never matched. The only thing I can think that she “didn’t talk about” was calling it rape (because it didn’t fit the definition of rape at the time that it had occurred). She admits to confessing groping of her high school newspaper advisor to her mother (who ultimately told her father). She admits that she told a few people about the assault from her friend. So what exactly did she not talk about? It’s probably not an important point to dwell on at all, but it is really upsetting, because I felt mislead. I thought the book was going to be her admitting something for the first time after 15 years, and in a way it was. It was the first time she really tried to deal with what happened. On the surface level though, she talked about it all.

Ultimately, I won’t even be going back to this book. It has stuck with me, even if it is in a negative way. I truly appreciate the author’s willingness to share her story and write what happened from her perspective. I would not have picked up this book if I didn’t think it was an important story to share. I applaud her for what she did and I truly think it’s important for us to read memoirs like these to understand how people are affected by sexual assault.