Warning: Book Glorifies Rape

Cruise Confidential: A Hit Below the Waterline: Where the Crew Lives, Eats, Wars, and Parties: One Crazy Year Working on Cruise Ships by Brian David Bruns

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


The publisher and author should be ashamed of putting out a book that so explicitly makes light of sexual abuse and rape. I returned the book in haste, and now I wish I had pulled the exact passage from the text. The author witnessed a nearly-unconscious, drunk woman being raped on the ship and did nothing about it. What’s worse, he literally said he had to laugh because that was life on a cruise ship for you.

I did not finish the book after the rape scene. You should not buy this. It is not funny. It’s race-insensitive, sexist, and misogynistic. The author thinks he’s being funny when only a white, American, straight male in a fraternity would laugh at his humor.

The publisher should pull this book, and the author should report the rape to the authorities, even if it is way past the statute of limitations. There is a woman out there that the author knows who might benefit from validation and recognition of her trauma.

I will be contacting the publisher to request this book be pulled from the shelves since it glorifies toxic masculinity and rape culture.



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