Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Denial: A Memoir of Terror

3.65 of 5 stars 3.65 · rating details · 377 ratings · 135 reviews

"I have listened and I have been quiet all my life. But now I will speak."

One of the world's foremost experts on terrorism and post-traumatic stress disorder investigates her own unsolved adolescent sexual assault at the hands of a serial rapist, and in so doing, examines the horrors of trauma and denial.

Alone in an unlocked house in a safe neighborhood in the suburban tow...more

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published June 22nd 2010 by Ecco

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

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

Lists with This Book

The Long Hard Road Out of Hell by Marilyn Manson

And I Don't Want to Live This Life by Deborah Spungen

Unsettling "better them than me" Memoirs & Biographies

75th out of 115 books — 37 voters

The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare

Breaking the Silence: Talking About Violence Against Women

21st out of 49 books — 6 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 1,629)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Jul 15, 2010 Michelle rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, non-fiction, psychology

In general, this book was interesting, but difficult to read. Full-length review: http://bit.ly/10zPBJZ

4 likes · like · see review

Jul 07, 2010 Athira (Reading on a Rainy Day) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: source-review, source-own, 2010, nf-bios-memoir, nonfiction, personal-library

Jessica Stern was fifteen years old when she was raped. She and her fourteen-year old sister were alone at her step-mother's home in a safe neighborhood where rapes don't happen, doing their homework, when a gun-wielding skinny man with a strong cologne and concord accent walked in and raped them. When they however reported the crime, the police were skeptical.

For the next more than thirty years, Jessica denied her pain. She became an expert on terrorism. However, she found herself incapable of...more Jessica Stern was fifteen years old when she was raped. She and her fourteen-year old sister were alone at her step-mother's home in a safe neighborhood where rapes don't happen, doing their homework, when a gun-wielding skinny man with a strong cologne and concord accent walked in and raped them. When they however reported the crime, the police were skeptical.

For the next more than thirty years, Jessica denied her pain. She became an expert on terrorism. However, she found herself incapable of feeling fear. Instead, she realized that she was hyper-vigilant when threatened. Eventually, she decides to learn more about her own unsolved rape and her rapist. What she comes to learn is not entirely to her satisfaction, but she ends up seeing her symptoms in some other people loosely connected to her rapist, and also in her own father. She learns to accept that she has been in denial for so long and that she indeed is still exhibiting symptoms of trauma.

Denial is a very candid look at Jessica's life and her many trials. We learn what drove her to study terrorism, and why she felt compelled to talk to the "bad guys" terrorists and go to dangerous places in Iraq and Afghanistan; why she barely felt any fear in situations that would normally put most people into panic mode. We also see more of her childhood and how more incidents than the rape were responsible in some way for her trauma. Throughout the book, we see the experiences of several other people as well, through Jessica's eyes. We see how her father grew up as a Jewish during the rise of the Nazis, how he learned to bottle up the past and move forward, and how inadvertently Jessica learns the same tactics. We look at Jessica's rapist's life, not just as a violator, but as a human being who similarly went through several disappointments and tragic circumstances. We are also introduced to the rapist's friends and how they insist that the guy is actually very nice and wouldn't rape anyone. And yet, Jessica sees the cloud hanging around their words each time.

Jessica could hardly remember much about the day she was raped. She had forgotten most of the details and continues to forget them even after reading the police reports on the rape, including her own statements. She is understandably angry that much of her life hinged on that one night. Her narration is occasionally venomous, as she contemplates potential scenarios with her rapist. She wants to kill him, and she doesn't mince words confessing that. But in the same vein, she admits her guilt at being plagued by such demonic thoughts.

Would I ever heal? No, I would not. I would become someone else.

Denial was a very powerful read for me. I struggled to connect during the first 50 pages with the narration but soon I warmed up to it and couldn't put the book down. Jessica introduces us to several stark characters - some endearing, some not, whose actions stay with me long after I closed the book. There is the grandfather who has naked showers with her, the research assistant who knows what Jessica is going through, since he has seen it in his own father, another victim of the same rapist who was ashamed of her own body for many years. Then there is Jessica's troubled childhood. Jessica often tries to postpone the inevitable - meeting with a friend of the rapist or with the police lieutenant who has been helping her get information. At these times, she starts worrying about mundane things and keeps repeating her actions. At other times, she gets increasingly rude even though she doesn't mean to.

Some people's lives seem to flow in a narrative; mine had many stops and starts. That's what trauma does. It interrupts the plot. You can't process it because it doesn't fit with what came before or what comes afterward. A friend of mine, a soldier, put it this way. In most of our lives, most of the time, you have a sense of what is to come. There is a steady narrative, a feeling of "lights, camera, action" when big events are imminent. But trauma isn't like that. It just happens, and then life goes on. No one prepares you for it.

Denial is more than a memoir of a woman who was raped more than thirty years ago. It talks about the pervasiveness of humiliation and shame - how one life touched by humiliation can pass it on to another life through any despicable manner. This sets in motion a vicious cycle. I wish Jessica had given her sister's side of affairs as well, considering the tragedy happened to both of them together, and also considering that he sister dealt with it differently. In so many ways, Denial is about her connection with several people having some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder - people she knows or people she contacted to learn more about her rapist; it is a confession of the trivial things that bother her when bigger things hardly cause a dent; it is about the trauma that haunted her all her life; it is also, in Jessica's words, a way "to speak out for those who cannot speak".(less)

5 likes · like · see review

Jun 22, 2010 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, non-fiction

From My Blog...[return][return]Denial: A Memoir of Terror by Jessica Stern is a deeply personal, raw, and profound look at the effects trauma has on an individual, the lengths one's brain will go to, to protect itself, and the damages stemming from denial. As my reader's know, I am a fan of memoirs, it is one of my most favourite genres and I have read my fair share of memoirs and this is the first memoir that is so honestly fresh, raw and written in a flawed manner that one gets the impression...more From My Blog...[return][return]Denial: A Memoir of Terror by Jessica Stern is a deeply personal, raw, and profound look at the effects trauma has on an individual, the lengths one's brain will go to, to protect itself, and the damages stemming from denial. As my reader's know, I am a fan of memoirs, it is one of my most favourite genres and I have read my fair share of memoirs and this is the first memoir that is so honestly fresh, raw and written in a flawed manner that one gets the impression the reader is personally hearing Jessica talk about her life.[return]In 1973 two sisters, 15-year-old Jessica and 14-year-old Sara were raped at gunpoint by an unknown assailant, the search for the rapist was dropped after 4 months. Each sister responded differently and Jessica believed it helped to make her focused and strong, skills that make her excel at her job investigating terrorists. Jessica learns many of her behaviours are most likely results of post-traumatic stress disorder, at the very least trauma. In 1996, Jessica was contacted by Lt. Macone to notify her he was reopening the case and could use her help if she was able. Stern writes about the process and her desire to interrogate her rapist, she wants to understand her rapist. In the process she learns the strong father she idolised was a terrorised child in Nazi Germany who has lived with his fears his whole life, even after escaping Germany.[return]The further she investigates the more she remembers and the more she learns about the processes of disassociation as well as how to begin to feel again. Denial is a work of love, healing, and tremendous strength and courage. Stern brings to the public what it is like first hand to be a victim and how one's life can be forever changed. The writing is at times cold and detached as one may expect and it is through Stern's honest account that her raw writing style makes Denial the most astonishingly profound memoir I have read to date. Without reservation I recommend Denial by Jessica Stern to any adult reader(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Oct 12, 2010 Sigrid Ellis rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

It's not that I can really say that I liked this book. Or, rather, I did like it -- I liked the narrator, Jessica herself, who transmutes trauma and shame into a relentless search for painful, dangerous truth.

I am put in mind of the idea from the Jewish faith, that good is show in works, not intentions. You have have right action without right thought, you can do good for bad reasons. The idea that, over time, right action leads to right thought. Fake it 'til you make it.

Jessica went looking fo...more

3 likes · like · see review

Mar 27, 2013 Elaine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found this memoir engrossing. Stern offers tremendous insight into trauma and the effects of PTSD. She is acutely aware of her feelings and how her childhood experiences affected her. Her coping mechanisms are admiral as is her honesty. I learned a lot about this condition. She is highly informative without being didactic. Her personal story is fascinating. She had helped me learn about myself and how I was affected by these terrible experiences. This book has helped me as much or more than an...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 14, 2013 Gwen rated it 5 of 5 stars

A memoir, masterfully written, describes the denial of emotions too shameful to discuss and too distressing for the family and the community (Concord, MA) to investigate: i.e. her pain and her shame at the brazen (in their own home) rape of her sister and she at the hands of a serial pedophile.

I could not put the book down until finished.

Stern is an experienced researcher of terrorism and the author of books on this subject. She serves on the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security a...more

like · see review

Mar 15, 2012 Helen Epstein rated it 3 of 5 stars

Denial is a difficult book, uncomfortable to read and even more
uncomfortable to review. It is a first-hand, detailed account by a
Harvard expert on terrorism of her rape by a stranger when she was 15
years old. Using police records and some of the same methodology she
used to interview international terrorists, Jessica Stern tries to
understand the man who raped her in 1973, as well as the rape╒s
long-term sequelae for herself. Her story is often vivid, surprisingly
candid and well- described but, at...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 16, 2011 Lori rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-nonfiction

Although this was an incredibly harsh book to read, disturbing and I can't say, "Ya - I ENJOYED that book!" - it was phenomenally thought provoking. Although, yes, it is about this woman's rape and the police reopening the case to track down the rapist 30 years later, it is her exploration into the rapist's past and trying to figure out what caused him to be the way he was. She also explores trauma in a variety of forms and how it affects each person. This woman actually worked for National Defe...more

1 like · like · see review

Jun 02, 2011 Katherine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Denial: A Memoir of Terror is going to be an important contribution to what we know about sexual violence, PTSD, and community-wide denial and victim-blaming. This is another of my pluses-and-minuses reviews.

+It is more riveting than any whodunit you will ever read. The memoir opens with middle-aged international terrorism expert Jessica Stern receiving a call from her hometown police department stating that they might be able to solve her thirty-year-old rape/home invasion case.
+Stern, while re...more

2 likes · like · see review

May 21, 2011 Catherine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, gender, mainstream-us, mental-illness

No other book I have read has so wholly and completely encapsulated what it is to suffer PTSD after being sexually assaulted. This book was a lifeline for me - it reassured me that I am not alone; it offered such compassionate understanding of what it is to navigate the world this way; it moved me deeply; it gave me hope. I've bought several copies in the past week to give to friends, to say - 'Here. This is what it's like inside my head. This is how I respond to the world. These are the things...more No other book I have read has so wholly and completely encapsulated what it is to suffer PTSD after being sexually assaulted. This book was a lifeline for me - it reassured me that I am not alone; it offered such compassionate understanding of what it is to navigate the world this way; it moved me deeply; it gave me hope. I've bought several copies in the past week to give to friends, to say - 'Here. This is what it's like inside my head. This is how I respond to the world. These are the things you probably can't imagine.' I am so deeply, deeply glad to have found this memoir.

It's difficult - more difficult than it should be - to find books that communicate what it is to develop PTSD after sexual assault, or even texts that examine PTSD outside the framework of veterans returning from war. When I was diagnosed I was confused, since I hadn't fought in Vietnam. The author, too, was doubtful that her hyper-vigilance, her dissociation, her tiredness, her inability to feel things, her flashbacks, her dreams could be PTSD, because PTSD was surely the illness of the returning vet. Countless people have said to me, when I tell them of my illness, "But you never served in the military." I am grateful that this book serves as a corrective to that viewpoint, that it identifies the battles that anyone who's sexually assaulted must fight to understand the changes in their brain that stem from trauma, and their body's injured impulse to constant self-protection years after the fact.

If you have been abused, assaulted, or raped, there are portions of this book that will be a hard read - the author's description of what happened to her is, as you would imagine, heart-rending. But you will also find kindness here, and understanding, and relief. And if you are someone who is related to, or friends with someone who has been assaulted, you will find in this book a wealth of information about what your loved one is likely going through.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.(less)

4 likes · like · see review

Sep 16, 2010 Trisha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: traded-giveaway

Reviewing a book about rape is difficult. Being raped is a woman's greatest fear and can be the source of a woman's greatest shame. How does a reader critically analyze a story so personal, so damaging, and so removed from her own life?

This separation between myself and the author was consistently apparent, and not just regarding the rape. The relationships Stern had with her family horrified me. While Stern acknowledges her father, her grandmother, and her grandfather's flaws, she continually p...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 24, 2010 Charlie Bishop rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a powerful and important book. Stern is a Harvard PhD, an internationally recognized expert on terrorism and the minds and motives of terrorists, and the daughter of a distinguished professor who, as a boy, suffered various humiliations under the Nazis in his native Germany. Stern herself was raped at age fifteen, as was her fourteen year old sister. Her memoir is a harrowing investigation of her humiliation, terror, and denial. The book is centered on a three-fold quest, first to find h...more

2 likes · like · see review

Aug 07, 2010 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have been dreading writing this review for a couple of days. I didn't like the book. I was disappointed which says something for my own expectations rather than the author. Given the author's expertise and academic accomplishment, I expected to be "wowed" by her insight and experience. Instead I felt like I was reading a teenager's diary which would actually make a lot of sense, since she hasn't opened this compartment since the horrific experience when she was 15.

What made it feel like a diar...more I have been dreading writing this review for a couple of days. I didn't like the book. I was disappointed which says something for my own expectations rather than the author. Given the author's expertise and academic accomplishment, I expected to be "wowed" by her insight and experience. Instead I felt like I was reading a teenager's diary which would actually make a lot of sense, since she hasn't opened this compartment since the horrific experience when she was 15.

What made it feel like a diary of a teenager was the constant exploration of personal interpretation, innuendo, and perception. Dr. Stern provides an inner dialogue of her journey from the moment the detective calls her to the publication of her book. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I simply thought it contained irrelevant information along with some golden nuggets. For instance, while talking with any number of people, the conversation is reported verbatim, which I liked. On the inside, the author is contemplating birds, surfaces, and discusses the way the person uses verb tense. Many of these inner dialogues come to naught.

Additionally, the author suffers from disturbing thoughts and images, which I believe is not uncommon. What bothered me is the innuendo that her grandfather performed sexual acts upon her prior to her rape. Yet this is never explored nor addressed. Did he? Don't know. So was that tidbit relevant? I don't know. The reader seeks closure.

What I liked about the book is that the author weaves the similarities of terror and the different ways of integrating the terror-inducing experiences through stories of her father's history during the Holocaust, soldiers who have suffered from PTSD, and people who have been traumatized by sexual acts.

I very much enjoyed Dr. Stern's epilogue, where she uses her professional experience and knowledge to tie the above mentioned groups together. Dr. Stern is intelligent, articulate, and experienced. Her experiences were simply horrific. Writing a memoir, I believe, was very therapeutic for her. I also do not doubt that many people will find her journey interesting and helpful.

For me, it was a solid 3 star experience. (less)

4 likes · like · see review

Jul 20, 2010 Joel rated it 5 of 5 stars

I had dinner with Jessica Stern one night a few years ago. Cyril Taylor invited us to dinner with a Harvard professor and it turned out it was Jessica Stern. She's one of the countries foremost experts on terrorists and has published at least one book and several articles on the subject. Her approach was unusual - she went out and actually spent time interviewing them (in the same vein as Daniel Pearl was doing when he was caught and executed). When I asked about if she was fearful doing this ty...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 12, 2010 Molly rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. http://lightningbugessays.blogspot.com

Jessica Stern is one of the world’s foremost experts in terrorism—the 9/11 kind of terrorism. As an unarmed woman, she went into some of the world’s scariest countries, met some of the world’s scariest people, and lived to tell the tale. She’s taught at Harvard and the CIA University. The FBI and National Security Council have sought her expertise on any number of terror groups and terrorist attacks.

But in this book, she tells the tale of a different kind o...more http://lightningbugessays.blogspot.com

Jessica Stern is one of the world’s foremost experts in terrorism—the 9/11 kind of terrorism. As an unarmed woman, she went into some of the world’s scariest countries, met some of the world’s scariest people, and lived to tell the tale. She’s taught at Harvard and the CIA University. The FBI and National Security Council have sought her expertise on any number of terror groups and terrorist attacks.

But in this book, she tells the tale of a different kind of terrorism. As a 15 year old, she and her sister, 14, were raped. While her family and the police believed the girls’ story, very little was done to solve the crime. Certain aspects of the attack were unusual, and the police thought the girls were holding back important information. The girls received no counseling, and after a hospital visit and a few police interviews, the rape was just…sort of…dropped. Stern remarks that had it not been for her sister, she probably would have forgotten it had happened at all.

This strategy of coping is a common symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Jessica Stern spends the book relating how she rediscovered this crime committed against her innocence and how a dedicated cop, 30 years later, managed to solve the case.

It is riveting.

With the help of her research assistant, she manages to track down some of her rapist’s old friends, old girlfriends, and a neighbor. The interviews she conducts with them are shocking—not because of the revelation of any vulgar secrets but because everyone agrees that the rapist was nice—except when he wasn’t. She discovers he came from a troubled background, and while she does not excuse him for his 40+ rapes, she does start to see the man, as opposed to the rapist, and how she processes all this information is simply fascinating. We’re offered an almost excruciating window into her mind; we hear what she is thinking and we get to read about the peculiar mechanisms her body developed as protection against terror—mechanisms which, she admits, have allowed her to perform so admirably in her chosen profession.

Throughout the book, she uses one phrase (and some variants of) frequently, and I was struck by it every single time. After receiving some disturbing information, she writes, “I decide I will feel about that later.” The first time I remember reading it (p. 57), I had to read it a couple of times because I thought a strange kind of typo had occurred. I thought she meant something like, “I would have to decide how I felt about that later." I thought it might just be a bit of awkward prose. But then I realized no, this was very specifically part of how she has dealt with terror her entire life, whether it be the sexual abuse of her grandfather, her rape, or the encounters with terrorists who were just as likely to kill her as meet with her. She was not deciding how she’d feel about something later. She had tricked herself into sublimating her emotions, tricked herself into thinking she would just feel them later, when it was more convenient.

In this book, Stern interviews another rape victim, an Iraq war veteran, and her father (a Jewish man who might be willing to call himself a witness of the Holocaust, rather than a survivor of); with each of these, she learns a little more about who she is, what she has experienced, and how those experiences have shaped the kind of person she is. This last bit sounds a little obvious, but for her, it was much needed insight. Her PTSD kept her from the kind of self-knowledge most of us take for granted.

This book is not a feminist manifesto that many might think it to be given the subject matter. It’s a book that deals with the contradictions inherent to human nature—how we can hurt the ones we love, how we can deny a violence done to us even as it tears us apart, how we can forgive those who didn’t protect us—and it speaks to the survivor in every one us, regardless of the kind of trauma we’ve experienced.

This is an excellent book. I quite literally could not put it down. (less)

like · see review

Jun 14, 2010 Rebecca Robichaud rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Sexual Assault Survivors, Women's Health Professionals

Recommended to Rebecca by: Good Reads!

Shelves: first-reads

Denial: A Memoir of Terror by Jessica Stern details the author's journey of self-discovery via the investigation of the rape of the author and her sister in 1973 and a discovery of the man who perpetrated the crime against the two young teenage girls. Stern suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of her rape and earlier childhood abuse at the hands of her step-grandmother, and throughout finds it difficult to connect to and identify the emotions tied to her experiences that summe...more

1 like · like · see review

Jun 15, 2010 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

Denial: A Memoir of Terror is the true story of a rape victim who investigates her own case - experienced and written by terrorism expert and author Jessica Stern.

After receiving an email from police lieutenant Paul Macone regarding Stern's unsolved rape case from years before, Stern dives headfirst into confronting her deepest fears and overcoming her trauma. In the process, she conducts intimate interviews with members of her family and victims of the same rapist.

The first half of Denial is ab...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 12, 2010 Sher Fick rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

I am on page 85. I. AM. NOT. ALONE. I have that feeling that this author has been inside my head for about 40 years. I never knew the effects were so patterned for so many survivors. I am so glad this book found me! Thanks GIGI!

I finished the book this morning. I am so - celebrative - that Jessica Stern did this hard work and created this book. It couldn't have been easy and she shared that struggle, along with every un-politically correct thought she had as she did it. Her bravery in digging in...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 12, 2011 Caitlin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

Although it is written in sparse readable prose and is highly intelligent and insightful, this is neither a pleasant nor a brutal read. Ms. Stern, an expert in terrorism, uncovers the source of her own terror - her childhood rape and its consequences. With the help of police, FBI contacts, and friends, Ms. Stern dares to delve into the life of her rapist - that unknown person who so affected her life. In doing so she is forced to consider how wide-ranging the after effects, how much of what she...more Although it is written in sparse readable prose and is highly intelligent and insightful, this is neither a pleasant nor a brutal read. Ms. Stern, an expert in terrorism, uncovers the source of her own terror - her childhood rape and its consequences. With the help of police, FBI contacts, and friends, Ms. Stern dares to delve into the life of her rapist - that unknown person who so affected her life. In doing so she is forced to consider how wide-ranging the after effects, how much of what she is good at and what she chooses to research is related to these effects, and ultimately to begin to confront her own anger and damage.

The thing I liked most about this book was its rawness. Ms. Stern is at the very beginning of understanding and facing what happened and is unafraid to display the raw anger that churns inside of her. I respected her refusal to be a stereotypical victim - trembling and cowed, always broken never to be repaired. Instead she takes hold of the event and its inherent complications, learns as much as she can, and honestly displays her emotions - rage, sadness, fear, bewilderment, compassion, and more rage. So often women deny themselves the full range of emotions, squishing themselves into the accepted. Ms. Stern isn't interested in the acceptable.

As Faulkner said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." This is a terrible thing to face head on. All the happenings in our lives, even the most horrible, are still right there, just under the surface, waiting to re-emerge. Ms. Stern accomplishes this with grace and an eye toward facing it all down, no matter how frightening.

There are places in this book that are strangely detached in that dissociative way so familiar to anyone who has experienced trauma. I can think of no better way to express the way PTSD moves through the brain and manifests itself to the external world.

Even better is Ms. Stern's acknowledgment of this dissociative feeling and the way it made it possible for her to do the work she has done - interviewing thousands of terrorists in dangerous places all over the world to better understand what drives them. Her willingness to explore the ways she has coped and turned certain aspects of PTSD to her professional advantage is particularly insightful and brave. We should learn from bad things, but so often the positive learnings are never expressed.

Altogether a remarkable book and worthwhile read.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Apr 14, 2011 Mely rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, 2011-read

When she was fifteen, Stern and her fourteen-year-old sister were raped at gunpoint by a stranger who invaded her house; Stern responded with a kind of emotional freeze that allowed her, years later, to interview terrorists without turning a hair, and which she only even later realized was a result of PTSD. Stern traces the effects and responses to trauma to her family history: her father was a Holocaust survivor, her mother died at 28 of a cancer most likely caused by her father's "treatments"...more

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 11, 2010 Greg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Naomi Wolf has already called Denial "one of the most important books I have read in a decade," and it's easy to see why. At the age of 15, Jessica Stern (and her sister, 14) were raped in the safe suburban town of Concord, Massachusetts. Decades later, Stern embarks on the emotionally harrowing journey to uncover the truth about her rapist. Writing with deep honesty and unflinching prose, she discovers that her trauma--and the terror her rape invokes--is also enmeshed with the death of her youn...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 24, 2013 Voracious_reader rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-but-unowned

Stern's book is a biography of sorts. It details her history as a victim of various types of sexual trauma and her ability to deny or disassociate from that trauma and work as an interviewer of terrorists around the world. I wouldn't say it was a fun read but it was an interesting one. I can't think of another book to which I would compare it. It was very straightforward about horrendous acts of abuse and rape suffered by the author, but, even in its straightforwardness, there is further demonst...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 12, 2010 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, family-relations, nonfiction-biographical

This one is hard to classify. It's such a sad story, the idea that there were all these rapes at the time, all in the same area, but mystifyingly the police did nothing about it. If they had found him (he wasn't trying real hard to be anonymous, it seems) they could have locked him up before he ever got to Stern. Along with the sad story is her reaction to it, her sister's reaction, her dad's reaction, and all of her family circumstances which contribute to her whole life trajectory. It doesn't...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 10, 2011 Renee rated it 3 of 5 stars

The author is a terrorism expert, national security adviser, and lecturer at Harvard. She confronts a definitive episode of terror in her own early life and traces its grim, damaging ramifications. Having grown up in Concord, Mass., in 1973, Stern, then 15, and her sister, a year younger, were forcibly raped at gunpoint by an unknown intruder; when the police reopened the case in 2006, Stern was compelled to confront the devastating experience. I have no doubt that what the author went through d...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 23, 2012 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Jessica Stern is an international expert on terrorism and academic who has written this book about he own ordeal. As a fifteen year old, she was home alone with her fourteen year old sister, when an armed man broke into their house and raped both girls.

Thirty years later a local police officer reopens the case and Jessica starts her own investigation, eager to learn as much as she can about the rapist. Finding that the rapist killed himself after some years in prison, she interviews his friends...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 15, 2010 Jude rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like · see review

Jun 26, 2010 *•.♥.•*Sabrina Rutter*•.♥.•* rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, arcs, victims-of-violent-crimes

In this memoir Jessica Stern tells the reader how she and her younger sister were raped at gun point when they were teenagers. The police didn't take their claim very seriously and went as far to say that the girls were lying. Now more than several years later Jessica is contacted by police lieutenant Paul Macone telling her that he has opened the case once again and feels that he can solve it.
Jessica suffers from Posttraumatic stress disorder due to the rape. This book really does give one a go...more

1 like · like · see review

Jun 21, 2010 Sandra Stiles rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, biography-memoirs

In 1973 15 year old Jessica Stern and her 14 year old sister encounter a man in their step-mother's house. he is armed with a gun. He rapes them both threatening to kill them if they don't comply or if they say anthing. Fast forward several years and we find Jessica is now a successful expert on terrorists and terrorism. She finds that the things that should terrify her don't and simple things do. She makes a decision to find out why. It is during this exploration she goes back to the files on h...more In 1973 15 year old Jessica Stern and her 14 year old sister encounter a man in their step-mother's house. he is armed with a gun. He rapes them both threatening to kill them if they don't comply or if they say anthing. Fast forward several years and we find Jessica is now a successful expert on terrorists and terrorism. She finds that the things that should terrify her don't and simple things do. She makes a decision to find out why. It is during this exploration she goes back to the files on her rape. The case is re-opened and she faces many people she has trusted in her life to help her find the answers. She discovers things about her father that may explain why he did not return immediately from a trip to Europe after finding out about his daughters. He completed his business and then returned.

For me this was a tough book to read. In her chapter called Denial she talks about being victimized over and over by those who are skeptical about events. I don't believe people willingly do this but it causes further damage none the less. The victim is then force to react in a way where they shut down emotions, pretend events never happened or they themselves re-victimize themselves by the choices they make. I think anyone who has ever suffered any type of trauma, whether it is the loss of a family member, a form of abuse or whatever should read this book. I thought of my cousins daughter who was involved in a terrible accident with her family. Her baby was killed, the oldest suffered permanent brain damage. Her husband wanted her to just wanted her to get over the accident and move on. They weren't his children. His ex-wife didn't understand "what the big-deal was the kid was dead just move on", yet told her what she would have done if her kids had been in the car and been injured. Her ex-husband stole money the community was raising for the oldest kids hospital bills. One person after another took the opportunity to kick her when she was down and then when she finally fell apart and became suicidal they said they couldn't understand what happened.

We all find ways to deal with our trauma. Some of us try to handle it ourselves or seek counseling. Others take it out on themselves or those around. Maybe if this book had been around they would have handled things differently.
(less)

2 likes · like · see review

Jun 27, 2010 Kaz rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, read-2010

I received this book (ARC) from GoodReads giveaway.

Stern's writing of her experiences gave me an impression of detachment and coldness sometimes. It amazed me somehow, but it was one of characteristics of PTSD, I guess. I didn't know anything about the symptoms of PTSD, so what she described of herself and others were interesting and very informative. I knew from the summary of book that she wrote about her rape, but it was more than that. She exposed not only the past of herself but also her fa...more

1 like · like · see review

Jun 26, 2010 Debby rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, goodreads-giveaway, goodreads-first-reads

This was not an easy read. In fact at times it was down right uncomfortable. Not because of the subject matter per se but because of the format and manner of "story telling."

Obviously this is a very personal story. It is a journey of self discovery by a courageous, intelligent and successful woman. Ms. Stern opens up her life for the reader to include views into her family history, family dynamics and of course a major event in her life, the rape. As would be true in any situation, even from my...more

1 like · like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 54 55 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Win 1 of 10 copies of this book!	1	4	Jun 16, 2010 01:18pm

combine
Other Editions (3)

Videos About This Book

Jessica Stern's DENIAL: A Memoir of Terror

Add a comment

Genres

Autobiography > Memoir

29 users

Non Fiction

23 users

Crime > True Crime

5 users

Biography

5 users

Psychology

5 users

Womens

3 users

Feminism

3 users

Biography > Autobiography

3 users

Adult

3 users

Mystery > Crime

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Jessica Stern

Jessica Stern is a Lecturer in Public Policy and a faculty affiliate of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. From 1994-95, she served as Director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council, where she was responsible for national security policy toward Russia and the former Soviet states and for policies to reduce the threat of nuclear smugglin...more

More about Jessica Stern...

Books by Jessica Stern

Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Denial: A Memoir ...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Denial: A Memoir of Te...

“Some people's lives seem to flow in a narrative; mine had many stops and starts. That's what trauma does. It interrupts the plot. You can't process it because it doesn't fit with what came before or what comes afterward. A friend of mine, a soldier, put it this way. In most of our lives, most of the time, you have a sense of what is to come. There is a steady narrative, a feeling of "lights, camera, action" when big events are imminent. But trauma isn't like that. It just happens, and then life goes on. No one prepares you for it.” — 31 people liked it

“I often feel like nobody," Skip says. "I ask myself: Why would you want to talk to me? Why would anyone want to talk to me? It comes on me suddenly, this feeling that I'm not anything...a person who has spent a lot of time in bed, who doesn't want to be anything."

I know what he is talking about, and this time, I tell him that. For years, I could not understand why anyone took me seriously. I could not understand how I managed to get into MIT or Harvard, why anyone would offer me a postdoctoral fellowship or a job. I could not understand why people kept turning to me after September 11. I didn't see myself as a person who couldn't get out of bed, but as a salesgirl in a coffee shop - the job I had as a teenager who was afraid to apply to college. My identity was stuck there for year.

"Inside me there is the person who wants to be dead," he says. "I can't advocate for myself. I can advocate very strongly for others, but not for myself...Sometimes I'm not sure that I exist. Is this really me - this person whom people want to consult about clergy sexual abuse? Or am I really the person who can't get out of bed? I've gotten better - I spend more of my time living in the present. But it takes a lot of effort to stay in the present - a lot of yoga and meditation. (195)” — 5 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Denial: A Memoir of Terror
avg rating	preview: Denial: A Memoir of Terror Goodreads rating: 3.65 (377 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://gr-assets.com/book/show/7797817-denial?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1267479381l/7797817.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://gr-assets.com/book/show/7797817-denial?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Denial: A Memoir of Terror by Jessica Stern[/url]

Denial: A Memoir of Terror

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website