[x] Could not find that book.

My rating:

add to my books

Lucky: A Memoir

by Alice Sebold

3.66 · rating details · 28,087 ratings · 2,433 reviews

Enormously visceral, emotionally gripping, and imbued with the belief that justice is possible even after the most horrific of crimes, Sebold's compelling memoir of her rape at the age of 18 is a story that takes hold and won't let go.

Paperback, 246 pages

Published September 16th 2002 by Back Bay Books (first published January 1st 2002)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil by John Berendt

Best True Crime

34th out of 212 books — 205 voters

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat & Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Medicine and Literature

176th out of 536 books — 368 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 39,236)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Oct 15, 2010

Matt rated it

· review of another edition

This is what I remember.

This is the first line in Lucky, Alice Sebold's memoir of her rape and its aftermath. It's the kind of first line that hooks you as you stand in the aisle of Barnes & Noble, or as you browse the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon. It's the kind of line that demands you read further. In five words, swollen with portentousness, it makes a lot of promises. An author needs to have a certain amount of guts to start a book like that. Alice Sebold has them an...more

like 93 likes

· see review

Jun 11, 2008

Kim rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: for-realz, rubbernecking

When I first started reading ‘Lucky’ I thought that something was wrong with me. I mean, I get that there is this horrific rape within the first chapter and that NO ONE should have to go through what she went through, but I wasn’t feeling it. It was more like ‘oh, wow, that sucks’. Then, I started feeling worse because I thought of my soul has become a blackened prune pit residing near my left kidney. I was more into the fact that Tess Gallagher and Tobias Wolff were Alices’ professors than ...moreWhen I first started reading ‘Lucky’ I thought that something was wrong with me. I mean, I get that there is this horrific rape within the first chapter and that NO ONE should have to go through what she went through, but I wasn’t feeling it. It was more like ‘oh, wow, that sucks’. Then, I started feeling worse because I thought of my soul has become a blackened prune pit residing near my left kidney. I was more into the fact that Tess Gallagher and Tobias Wolff were Alices’ professors than that poor Alice had to live through all this.

Then, thanks to the good people on GoodReads I learned that there is a syndrome.

Compassion Fatigue; A combination of being overwhelmed by the sheer number and scope of human disasters and atrocities, and numbed by the decontextualized manner in which they are presented by the media (thanks Abigail!)

This in no way undermines the meat of the story, I'm just explaining my utter horror of discovering that I wasn't truly freaking out during this book.

You can tell me something straight out and I’ll be blasé about it, but once you start to hint at an issue, I’m all over it. I think that as the book went on, it wasn’t so much a direct ‘I was raped’ story but more of a day to day life after with all the idiosyncrasies and patterns that emerge that drew me in.

It reminds me a bit of Joan Didion’s ‘Year of Magical Thinking’. That same sort of despondency that you find when you know that there is no option but to just move on.

So, there was a peak and then a valley and then a peak and then a valley and so on.. I would find myself not being able to put the book down during the time between the rape and the trial, watching Alice justify her actions and her drinking and not even commenting on the fact that it was an escape mechanism. But, following the trial, I was in that sort of valley stage, which, I suppose, is how life goes and it took me a bit longer to get through that.

The ‘Aftermath’ section was strong, except at that point I think her use of choppy, six word sentences seem out of place. This is the stuff that should flourish, the drug use, the denial, the recovery.

I appreciate her direct approach and lack of drama though. I won’t even pretend to understand what she went through and to write a memoir about it is extremely brave.

(less)

like 16 likes

· see review

Jun 28, 2007

stephanie rated it

Shelves: good-more-than-once, non-fiction, would-rec, crazypeoplememoirs, memoirs

i read this before i read Lovely Bones, in part because i wanted to see how she dealt with her own history, in part because well, i'm a sucker for memoirs. i classify this as a crazypeoplememoir not lightly - my definition of "crazy" is a little loose.

alice sebold was raped by someone she didn't know as an undergraduate at syracuse university.

what i love about this book is that sebold doesn't fall into the normal tradition of "victim" memoirs. she d...more

like 17 likes

· see review

Sep 09, 2007

Emily rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: No one

Sebold, you self-righteous narrator, you. It's been four years since I've read this book, and your holier-than-thou survivor's mentality still infuriates me.

like 18 likes

· see review

Jun 16, 2008

Catsalive rated it

· review of another edition

A harrowing tale, indeed. "It is not just forcible intercourse; rape means to inhabit and destroy everything" (p.123). No wonder it had taken so long for Alice to come to terms with it. Such brutal destruction of everything one knew and was could not be overcome quickly or easily. I found I had to stop reading at intervals to recover my own equanimity.

The reactions of the people surrounding her I found fascinating. What does one say to the victim? Certainly not "I gues...moreA harrowing tale, indeed. "It is not just forcible intercourse; rape means to inhabit and destroy everything" (p.123). No wonder it had taken so long for Alice to come to terms with it. Such brutal destruction of everything one knew and was could not be overcome quickly or easily. I found I had to stop reading at intervals to recover my own equanimity.

The reactions of the people surrounding her I found fascinating. What does one say to the victim? Certainly not "I guess this will make you less inhibited about sex now, huh?" (p.77). You'd think a therapist could have done better than that.

I think I'd like to read The Lovely Bones again having read this memoir. I didn't give it much of a review or rating when I read it & I wonder if I would feel any different on a second reading. Terry Gross asks an interesting question at the end of Lucky:

TG: I got the impression that the kind of moment-by-moment description of the brutality that's in your memoir is something you felt didn't belong in this new novel, in the description of the brutality that this fourteen-year-old face.

AS: Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is that I did write the beginning of The Lovely Bones before I wrote my memoir, so the violent crime that occurs in Susie's life happened, in terms of writing about it, before a description of my own rape was written by me later. I think in order to separate the two stories, to make sure that Susie was not doing any of my work for me when I returned to the novel, I stopped to write Lucky. And one of the things that was very important for me to do was to get all the facts of my own case down, so they had been written, they existed whole in a whole other book, and I could go back to Susie and she could lead me where she wanted to take me and tell me her story in the way she wanted to tell it, as opposed to me feeling perhaps that I needed to really tell the real deal about every dtail of rape and violence. I did that in the memoir as opposed to the novel because I wanted my characters to rule the novel, not some sort of desire to talk about rape and reveal rape to readers.

I thought this memoir was well-written and gripping, and despite the distressing content it was worth the effort.(less)

like 6 likes

· see review

Sep 04, 2007

Jennifer rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone who likes memoir

I picked this book up when I was living in Ireland, actually. I read the first five pages just standing in the bookstore and I was hooked. Unfortunately, I didn't have the money to buy it at the moment, so I put it on my mental "to-read" list. Just before I left for camp for the summer, I found it at my boyfriend's parents' house and started it again.

This book is very realistic in the fact that it has no happy ending; it isn't really a beginning, middle and end sort of stor...more

like 3 likes

· see review

May 10, 2007

Kelly Franklin Robinson rated it

Shelves: memoirs

It wouldn’t do justice to Lucky to call it a “rape memoir.” Though the events of the book cycle around Sebold’s rape she experienced as a college freshman, in a broader context her story deals with social attitudes and crime/justice. It takes a gifted writer to make brutal events into captivating memoirs; in stories that deal with a single trauma, first-person accounts tend to be so caught up feelings of aggression or grief that the emotions take precedence over the writing itself. Since Sebold ...more

like 4 likes

· see review

Jan 28, 2008

Scott rated it

· review of another edition

As a grad student at Syracuse, this book definitely hits close to home. For this reason, I forbid my girlfriend to go to Marshall Street alone late at night (yeah, I am a chauvinistic knuckle-dragger). I feel that The Lovely Bones is really just a metaphor for this, the author's real experience with her rape as a college freshman at SU. I love the recognition and legitimacy of hatred in the author's recovery. "I want to fuck you with a knife," she writes of her rapist. Studies have sho...more

like 4 likes

· see review

Feb 23, 2011

elisa rated it

Shelves: 2011

4.5 stars. i'm glad to see that in the years since the author's rape (and the rapes of others that aren't detailed but are mentioned) that a lot has changed in advocacy. i'm disappointed to see that in those years rape hasn't become less of a problem, that court hasn't become less about revictimization and more about justice, that we don't ask fewer questions about dress and consumption of substances and flirting and resistance and what time she went over to his house and her sexual history, t...more

like 1 like

· see review

Oct 24, 2007

Adrienne rated it

Women's stories of their trauma aren't being told, their being sold. Here's a shining example.

like 3 likes

· see review

Mar 10, 2009

Laurie rated it

It was interesting reading this true story after "The Lovely Bones" (this was her first published book) as now I see where her obsession with interlacing violence with the mundane world comes from. This was an interesting read but felt more like a recitation of fact, of the drill you go through as a rape victim, rather than an exploration of her mutilated sexuality, as she suggests. I didn't feel the terror, the anguish, the paranoia but instead felt as if I were in fact at the police ...more

like 3 likes

· see review

Nov 26, 2011

Tânia rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, books-i-own

The first line of the book: “This is what I remember…”

The last line (implied): “This is what I’ll never forget…”

“The Lovely Bones” was how I first heard of Alice Sebold, first the movie, and then the book. Unfortunately I wasn’t as much fascinated by the book as I was with the movie, which I think captured the real essence of what was supposed to be the book. “Lucky”, a true account of the brutal assault and rape of Alice Sebold, was the precedent to “The Lovely Bones”, h...more

like 1 like

· see review

Jul 17, 2008

M rated it

· review of another edition

This was the last thing I ever intended to read, but Sebold's narrative really captured my attention. I was on Chapter 3 before I knew it, and just had to keep reading; I had to find out what happened. I actually got the rest of the book as an audiobook (got to Chapter 3 via online excerpts) and listened to Sebold herself narrate the story of how, when she was an 18 year old virgin coed at Syracuse University, she was brutalized, beaten, and viciously raped and sodomized one night on her way h...moreThis was the last thing I ever intended to read, but Sebold's narrative really captured my attention. I was on Chapter 3 before I knew it, and just had to keep reading; I had to find out what happened. I actually got the rest of the book as an audiobook (got to Chapter 3 via online excerpts) and listened to Sebold herself narrate the story of how, when she was an 18 year old virgin coed at Syracuse University, she was brutalized, beaten, and viciously raped and sodomized one night on her way home. Not the most light subject, and told in very intimate detail to boot. But it is Sebold's wry and factual telling of her story that made me keep listening, even when it was difficult. This isn't a pity-me memoir, drenched in oversimplification and gratuitous tragedy. It is an important story that needs to be told, because as someone put it, a lot of people seem to still think that rape is just a form of bad sex. It was disheartening to realize that even though Sebold had been through such a brutal ordeal, she was still getting asked questions by jurors like why she went through the park at night. Her own father asked her how she could have "allowed" the rape to happen, since her perpetrator wasn't holding the knife to her throat the entire time? I got so angry reading about how she was treated, this visibly beaten human being, who wasn't believed by the police officer who took her statement (he thought there was more to her story than what she was telling him), and who had to be the calm one who held her family together (nobody wanted to be at the grand jury proceeding or the trial, though eventually her father deigned to go to the trial) because they just didn't know how to deal with what had happened at all. Neither, as you can imagine, did Sebold, who was able to identify her rapist and get him convicted and given the maximum sentence (25 years), but found that even after this form of closure, she was still haunted and traumatized by the events for 20 years, even as she attempted to convince herself emotions were bullshit and she was fine. I give Sebold credit for being frank and honest about the extent to which she deceived herself, about how she used alcohol and heroin and bad relationships to self-medicate, and I identify with her intellectual impatience with herself to be "over it". We know, though this book doesn't go into it, that Sebold eventually sought therapy, re-enrolled in school, met the love of her life (fellow novelist Glen David Gold) and wrote a bestselling first novel. After reading what happened to her at 18, I am left in awe of her strength and perseverance. (less)

like 4 likes

· see review

Jul 15, 2008

Andi rated it

· review of another edition

finished Alice Sebold’s memoir Lucky last night, and I really loved it as a piece of writing (of course, since it’s about rape, the story is trying and difficult - but important and valid - something that needed to be said). I find Sebold’s spare style to be perfect for this work. She lays out the events and their aftermath with straightforward gumption, get it out there and get it out there truthfully. She’s strong in her experience, and that makes for good reading to me.

But one of...more finished Alice Sebold’s memoir Lucky last night, and I really loved it as a piece of writing (of course, since it’s about rape, the story is trying and difficult - but important and valid - something that needed to be said). I find Sebold’s spare style to be perfect for this work. She lays out the events and their aftermath with straightforward gumption, get it out there and get it out there truthfully. She’s strong in her experience, and that makes for good reading to me.

But one of the things, oddly enough, that I glommed onto in this book were all the writers she knew. I was telling friends last night that I had been born about twenty years too late and had gone to the wrong school since I am a writer. I should have been at Syracuse in the 80s with Sebold, although the ramifications of that in terms of what happened there during her years are not lost on me. But if you think only of the writers she met (and yes, I know this is impossible and probably somewhat awful for me to note but it’s true), wow!! Tobias Wolff, Tess Gallagher, Raymond Carver, Hayden Carruth, Jack Gilbert, Robert Bly - oh my word! What a line-up!!

In fact, it’s what Tobias Wolff says to her that most struck me because of its importance both in the book, in Sebold’s life - it seems, and in my world as a writer. Just after she sees her rapist for the first time after the rape, she has to tell Wolff that she won’t be in his workshop (sidenote - how amazing that some teachers can still command that much respect for their courses that a student, in the midst of major trauma, would still feel the need to explain her absence). She explains the situation, and this is the rest of the scene:

“Alice,” he said,” a lot of things are going to happen and this may not make much sense to you right now, but listen. Try, if you can, to remember everything.”
I have to restrain myself from capitalizing the last two words. He meant them to be capitalized. He meant them to resound and to meet me sometime in the future on whatever place I chose. He had known me for two weeks. I was nineteen. I sat in his class and drew flowers on my jeans. I had written a story about sewing dummies that came to life and sought revenge on dressmakers.
So it was a shout across a great distance. He knew, as I was later to discover when I walked into Doubleday on Fifth Avenue in New York and bought This Boy’s Life, Wolff’s own story, that memory could save, that it had power, that it was often the only resource of the powerless, the oppressed, or the brutalized.

In this line is the reason I write - not because I’m entirely powerless or greatly oppressed or have been brutalized (praise God for my blessings there) - but because a writer’s job is to find power for those who don’t have it - ourselves or others. And for me, a nonfiction writer, that tool for power is memory. (less)

like 1 like

· see review

Aug 03, 2007

amanda marie rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 50booksin07

It was definitely 50/50 with this book. One half of me really enjoyed it, while the other half of me was bored.

From the very beginning, I was impressed with Sebold and the actions she chose to take regarding her rape: dealing with everyone’s mixed emotions, going back to school where she was the topic of every conversation, and running into her rapist, charging him, and taking him to court. She was strong. Stronger than I think I would even be in such a position. Reading her graphic ...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Dec 10, 2007

Xenia0201 rated it

· review of another edition

Brilliant. I was hooked from the first paragraph of the foreword but I had a very difficult time getting though the first chapter, where Sebold's rape was described in excrutiating detail. Remembering this is a memoir, it made me physically ill. I really admire the guts this woman has...she went right back to Syracuse and went on with her life, determined to get justice for what happened and reclaim her identity to be more than "that girl who was raped". I was appalled at the treat...more

like 5 likes

· see review

Jul 15, 2010

Laurel rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2010

I never planned to read this book. I'd read Lovely Bones and wasn't that impressed with the writing; to read about Sebold's actual rape seemed not only voyeuristic to me, but too intensely personal a subject. Since then, I've read significantly more memoirs and gained a new appreciation for them and for the authors who write them and share their stories. I've learned from them.

A coworker whose opinion I trust encouraged me to give Lucky a try and when I was having difficulty getti...more

like 1 like

· see review

Oct 24, 2007

Heather rated it

· review of another edition

Aside from the actual events of this book, what I took from it was a better sense of how unique we all are as individuals. How we all "deal" with things differently. I also find it very interesting that most of us don't know how to cope or help someone who has been victimized. All of us are touched by violence in some form. We all know someone, or have been the victim ourselves, and yet we can't seem to figure out how to handle the situations. Maybe, even when violence is staring ...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Jan 03, 2009

Susan rated it

· review of another edition

This memoir is almost a really good book. But I think it's lacking the essential emotional connection between the author and readers. And the ending seems empty. Bravo for her, though, for writing about such a tough subject -- her rape and it's aftermath on her life.

like 4 likes

· see review

Oct 10, 2007

Katie Garcia rated it

· review of another edition

Why do all rape books end in the character loosing weight and subsequently shedding all the baggage of her rape. Is weight loss synonomous with healing? I liked the book, I thought the character had an interesting take on her own rape, but I felt she was also a littel judge-y and the whole I'm feeling better because I bought an excersise bike. When her best friend in college was raped a year later, she seemed to judge her friend for not prosecuting, for just wanting to forget it all happened. We...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Nov 30, 2007

Gabby rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: inspirational

It took me awhile to read this book, mostly because I had so little time, but I loved it. It was like reading my own story. I was so proud of how she stood up to her attacker, and always wished I could have. The time period was exactly the same, so it was eerily the same in a lot of ways. I also grew up in Syracuse, so I knew all the locations quite well and felt her story even more, if that's possible. You have a life before and a life after, and it's never the same again, no matter how hard y...more

like 4 likes

· see review

Mar 11, 2009

Timesha added it · review of another edition

The book that I just finished reading was Lucky by Alice Sebold. This book's genre is A memoir. I guess that I would have to say that the theme would have to be there is evil lerking around everywhere you go.
Lucky is about Alice Sebold and her life after she had been raped in a tunnel. She was so sure everyone was judging her afterwards. Also that no guy would look at her the sameway afterwards, she'd always be that raped ugly girl. Then she went into trial with the rapist and she was ...moreThe book that I just finished reading was Lucky by Alice Sebold. This book's genre is A memoir. I guess that I would have to say that the theme would have to be there is evil lerking around everywhere you go.
Lucky is about Alice Sebold and her life after she had been raped in a tunnel. She was so sure everyone was judging her afterwards. Also that no guy would look at her the sameway afterwards, she'd always be that raped ugly girl. Then she went into trial with the rapist and she was seeked justic. Alice is obviously the main character, the on to get raped, the victum.
When I started this book I was really shocked but at the same time really pulled in and interested, mainly because she had been raped. My favorite scene was the rape because of the intensity and aggressiveness of the fight that she put up. My favorite character was Alice because she showed a lot of strength by moving right on in life and put the whole thing behind her. This book was very descriptive for example when Alica and the rapist had been in the tunnel the gave detail of everu little bump and bang never leaving one point out. A question that I had that had gotten answered was "would Alice ever find her rapist and learn his true identity?" and she did. I agreed with Alice for moving on because living with something like that on your mind can really mess you up emotionally and make you sad or filled with many emotion. The line that Alice uses "It semmed unfathomable to me that it had taken so many years to come to terms with my rape...but I had began to except that it had. It left me with a feeling I couldn't describe. Hell was over. I had all the time in the world ahead." In this last line it has tought me that Alice Sebold was a really wise women to let something so tradgic go and be put in the past.
I belive that any woman in the world would enjoy reading this book. But I would recommend this book to teenaged girls. If you liked the movie "Women thou art loosed" You may like Lucky because they both involve rape and sadness but in the end there is forgiveness.
In conclusion I have rapped up telling you about the book Lucky by Alice Sebold. About the sadness and greatness about it. The good and the bad. The interesting and educational. That this was a really good book.
-- (less)

like 1 like

· see review

Jan 02, 2009

Antof9 rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2005-read, women, upsetting, made-me-cry

WOW. This is not what I had expected. I think I had been told (or maybe assumed) that this was another novel, more heavy and more autobiographical than The Lovely Bones, but I didn't know it was a full-on straight-talk version of her actual story.

My thoughts? They are many and random:

<UL><li>It's heavy.  Really heavy.  And because this forum thread was active the week before I read this book, I'd say, strongly, don't let an 11 year old read this book!

<li

...moreWOW. This is not what I had expected. I think I had been told (or maybe assumed) that this was another novel, more heavy and more autobiographical than The Lovely Bones, but I didn't know it was a full-on straight-talk version of her actual story.

My thoughts? They are many and random:

<UL><li>It's heavy.  Really heavy.  And because this forum thread was active the week before I read this book, I'd say, strongly, don't let an 11 year old read this book!

<li>This book reminded me a LOT of Fran Drescher's Cancer Schmancer.  I hope that's not insulting or inappropriate to either author, but it seemed as if both stories needed to be told, and told well, as an empowering story for other women (and men) to read.  Yes, they are totally different.  And they are totally the same.

<li>I'm interested by the comments that describe this in "uplifting" words.  I agree it's "exhilarating" (Elle), "strangely enchanting" (Newsday), and "funnier than you'd think was possible" (Vogue), but it wasn't totally positive.  It's definitely one woman's story of survival.  How she was incredibly destructive and came out on the other side, how she discovered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, etc.  But I still found it to be sort of a downer.  Not because of the subject matter.  The rape was overcome!  That's an upper!  But because she spent so long on the first three-quarters of the book and then after the 2nd rape (not a spoiler, per se) where her life went was sooooo depressing.  In the end, her "healing" was only granted a handful of pages.  And that's the best part!  Why wouldn't she have dwelt more on that?  That's what I found depressing.

<li>It is amazingly well written.  And now that I know Lovely Bones was her first book, I can forgive her the dumb "quasi-Ghost" scene.

<li>Having only read these two books, I can't help but wonder if this is the only topic she writes on.

<li>As you read this book, you wonder how her family feels about it.  At least, I did.

I'll end with this Newsday quote from the cover. I think it's spot-on: The quiet achievement of Sebold's memoir of her rape as a college freshman is that she handles her subject with the integrity of a journalist and the care of a survivor.(less)

· see review

Jan 02, 2009

Katherine rated it

· review of another edition

When Alice Sebold was brutally beaten and raped in the cold and lonely park near her college dormitory, police told her that she was “lucky” to have not been murdered. “In the tunnel where I was raped…a girl had been murdered and dismembered. I was told this story by the police. In comparison, they said, I was lucky.” The pain and irony in this description serves as the basis for Sebold’s memoir entitled Lucky.
From that night on, Sebold struggles to keep her life together. She doe...more When Alice Sebold was brutally beaten and raped in the cold and lonely park near her college dormitory, police told her that she was “lucky” to have not been murdered. “In the tunnel where I was raped…a girl had been murdered and dismembered. I was told this story by the police. In comparison, they said, I was lucky.” The pain and irony in this description serves as the basis for Sebold’s memoir entitled Lucky.
From that night on, Sebold struggles to keep her life together. She doesn’t want to be looked upon by others as tainted or destroyed; nor does she try to pretend that the rape never occurred. Rather, Sebold bravely marches ahead with her life, continuing on with school, while at the same time attempting to deal with the incredible trauma that the rape inflicted upon her.
Sebold’s story is rich with details and vivid descriptions. She effortlessly weaves together raw and painful details with sarcasm, revealing a raped teenaged woman’s forced bravado as she explores the complicated dynamic between herself and her parents and sister after the rape. Desperate for her parents to not treat her differently after the rape, she tries to show her father that she’s not broken. “I’m still me, Dad,” Sebold tells her father.
As Sebold’s college years draw to a close, she realizes that she still has not healed from the rape. In the following years, Sebold moves from one precarious situation to the next, moving through lovers, drugs, and low-paying jobs until finally she realizes that she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, a realization that finally helps her to deal with the trauma in her life.
This book is a remarkable piece. It is a gritty, unabashed, and honest look at the devastating effects of rape on not only the victim, but on her friends and family as well. Sebold’s brave work is not an ongoing psychotherapy session. Rather, it is the product of years of reflection and recognition, a beautiful piece of writing that explores the journey of healing and empowerment.

(less)

like 1 like

· see review

Jan 01, 2009

Lizzie rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs, read-in-2007

Memoir about being raped, as a college freshman. This is a subject that's really scary and emotional for me - all my life, as far back as I can remember, I've been terrified of rape and worried about it. Her description of the rape itself was hard to read. But then it goes into how she went back to school and eventually testified against the rapist, and other parts were sort of lighter than I expected. At the trial when she's testifying and the defense lawyer tries to rattle her but doesn't, I w...more

· see review

Jan 05, 2012

Elizabeth Phelps rated it

· review of another edition

This is a really excellent memoir written by Alice Sebold, (author of bestselling novel, /The Lovely Bones/). /Lucky/ starts with a horrific detailed account of the night Sebold was raped in a park while walking home to her dorm as a freshman at Syracuse University in New York. It was a brutal rape and beating, lasting longer than an hour, and it often difficult to read. From there, Sebold discusses the events that take place after her rape--reporting to the police, telling her parents, returnin...more

· see review

Jan 04, 2012

Ms. Warner rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, favorites

I had previously read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and really enjoyed it, therefore I was intrigued when I saw that she had a memoir.

Alice Sebold opens the memoir with a detailed account of her rape as an 18-year-old freshmen at Syracuse University. She was attacked in a park, and then dragged to a tunnel and raped, by a complete stranger. Alice was a virgin and a good girl who did not drink or smoke, and her life was changed forever. The memoir is centered around her rape and h...moreI had previously read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and really enjoyed it, therefore I was intrigued when I saw that she had a memoir.

Alice Sebold opens the memoir with a detailed account of her rape as an 18-year-old freshmen at Syracuse University. She was attacked in a park, and then dragged to a tunnel and raped, by a complete stranger. Alice was a virgin and a good girl who did not drink or smoke, and her life was changed forever. The memoir is centered around her rape and how it affected every aspect of her life.
Her account of the attack is violent and intense, but it is also direct and not overly emotional. She uses short, quick sentences. As with the rape, she recounts the aftermath in detail. Students stared at her battered body as she made her way back to the dorm. Luckily she has a friend who is there for her. She was brave enough to call the police and was taken to the hospital for a rape kit.
While the first part of the book is focused on the technicalities of her rape, once she returns home we learn more about her childhood and family life. She reminisces about her childhood which gives us a glimpse of her life before the rape. Her family is rather odd - her father is a professor and spanish scholar from Princeton and her mother suffers sporadic panic attacks that their family has coined 'flaps'. These flaps could be triggered by large crowds, long rides, unexpected events, etc. and her father was often away on business or locked up in his office - therefore Alice had a fairly reclusive childhood.
Once home after the rape, Alice realizes that her family will never see her in the same way. She has become an alien to them, and they never want to talk about the 'incident'. After the summer she bravely decides to return to Syracuse University, where she was stared at and whispered about.

Six months after her rape, she sees her rapist from across the street. He has the audacity to actually approach her and talk to her. She calls the police and pretty soon she has a name for her rapist. The rest of the book follows her prosecuting her rapist - line ups, many retellings of the event, and a long drawn out trial.

This book is certainly not for everyone, but it was probably one of the most riveting memoirs I have ever read. It read like a novel and I could not put it down. The rape affected every aspect of Sebold's life, and yet she was brave enough to live through it all again in order to put her rapist behind bars. Her story provides strength, hope, and power to any women who have suffered similar hardships. I could not teach this is school because it is way too graphic, but I do think high school students, particularly girls, would like it and find it very moving.
(less)

· see review

Dec 20, 2011

Chris rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, crime-related, feminst, letters-memoirs-trials

Rape is at once both a simple and complext subject. Regardless of the victim and rapist, it ties, cuts, right to the heart of our views about gender. It is impossible to step this, and it has been used to inspire terror and as a form of punishment.

It should be note that before I read this book, I had read the jezebel article about You Deserve Nothing, to which Ms. Sebold is connected. My reading of this book is most likely affected by that article.

Sebold's story st...moreRape is at once both a simple and complext subject. Regardless of the victim and rapist, it ties, cuts, right to the heart of our views about gender. It is impossible to step this, and it has been used to inspire terror and as a form of punishment.

It should be note that before I read this book, I had read the jezebel article about You Deserve Nothing, to which Ms. Sebold is connected. My reading of this book is most likely affected by that article.

Sebold's story starts with an act that despite its violence, its illegality, is simple. Simple because most acts are, because it is simply violent, because it is simply wrong. Sebold's graphic description of her rape makes the reader at once a unwilling quasi voyager while shattering and subverting all the romance novel fantasies.

The complex follows afterward as Sebold details not only her reaction, but those of the police, the lawyers, her friends, her family, her community's (both college and home) reaction to her rape. This is both raw and compelling because it touches at the complex issues that lie at the hear of any reaction to rape.

Even though Sebold's rape happened in 1981, all of what she deals with can still be found today. No, I'm not talking about just where rape is used as punishment or where women are killed by thier family or where women get thier virginity tested upon arrest. I'm talking every where. Here in Philadelphia, a female judge threw out rape charges because the woman who brought the charges had arranged to have sex for money with two of the men who "ran a train on her" (the total number was over five); therefore, according to the judge, she couldn't be raped, just robbed, and anyway she was asking for it. Even in "civilized" or "modern" countries, the victim, no matter how innocent faces accusation - what were you doing there, how were you dressed and so on. Society wants to blame him or her. Yes, him. Just because a young teenage boy sleeps with his teacher doesn't mean he is "lucky". Reverse the sexes, or think about Penn State. (And for the record, she seduced me, doesn't work when it is a 12 year old and fifty year old).

It is to Sebold's credit that in this memoir she doesn't come across as particularly likable or admirable. Nor does she to want the reader's admiration or liking or, more importantly, pity. She doesn't want any of these things. She describes what is and what was. This is important, as important as those inspirational stories that we read in school. Everyday is as important as insipirational, especially when, considering the recent STATS, such attacks are, sadly, an everyday occurance.(less)

like 5 likes

· see review

Nov 22, 2011

Phillip rated it

· review of another edition

The book Lucky by Alice Sebold was a very dramatic and horrific non-fiction book to read.

Lucky is a non-fiction book about a collage freshman who is brutally raped at the age of 18, the events in this book are very horrific and extremely suspenseful and dramatic.
The writer chose to write this book to warn and explain her experiences, she wrote an extremely dramatic and suspenseful book without having to change any of the actual events that occurred.

This book had man...more

· see review

Sep 05, 2011

Tasha enderby rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

I do not know how I find books that are often a soft subject to read about. I can't recall why this paper back book was on my shelf or where it came from but I was in need of something to read. Alice Sebold begins to tell the first hand record of her rape as a college student. Personally rape hit close to home for me and always has mixed emotions...I started this book with a "why did I pick it up attitude" and I ended with an " it wasn't so bad", there are some parts that are...more

like 1 like

· see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 1307 1308 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (26)

More editions...

Genres

Non Fiction

396 users

Autobiography > Memoir

371 users

Biography

88 users

Biography Memoir

29 users

Biography > Autobiography

29 users

Womens

24 users

Adult

22 users

Drama

16 users

Womens Fiction > Chick Lit

15 users

Mystery > Crime

14 users

See top shelves...

Readers Also Enjoyed

About Alice Sebold

Alice Sebold is an American writer. She has published three books: Lucky (1999), The Lovely Bones (2002), and The Almost Moon (2007).

More about Alice Sebold...

Books by Alice Sebold

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Pin It

Trivia About Lucky

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Lucky

“I live in a world where two truths coexist: where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand” — 91 people liked it

“I forgive you," I said. I said what I had to. I would die by pieces to save myself from real death.” — 30 people liked it

More quotes…

Groups That Shelved Lucky

Memoirs and Biographies W...

681 members

last activity Feb 02, 2012 10:12am

shelf: read

Bound Together

660 members

last activity 29 minutes ago

shelf: read

The Escapists: A Book Club

137 members

last activity Feb 04, 2012 08:06am

shelf: read

title link	preview: Lucky: A Memoir
avg rating	preview: Lucky: A Memoir Goodreads rating: 3.66 (28087 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/228494.Lucky?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172887908m/228494.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/228494.Lucky?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Lucky: A Memoir by Alice Sebold[/url]

Lucky: A Memoir

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Readers Also Enjoyed

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website