My Week in Book Review: Exposed

Exposed by Kimberly Marcus

Sixteen-year-old Liz is Photogirl—sharp, focused and confident in what she sees through her camera lens. Confident that she and Kate will be best friends forever. But everything changes in one blurry night. Suddenly, Kate is avoiding her, and people are looking the other way when she passes in the halls. As the aftershocks from a startling accusation rip through Liz's world, everything she thought she knew about photography, family, friendship and herself shifts out of focus. What happens when the picture you see no longer makes sense? What do you do when you may lose everything you love most?

Gahhhh. First I will say that I’m going to spoil some of the plot points of this book. I don’t know how to talk about it without doing that, but I won’t spoil the end for you.

Second—This. Book. Words to describe it and how I felt reading it: Heartwrenching. Gutwrenching. Sad. Conflicted. Guilty. Resentful. Lonely. I finished reading this book about the time I’d normally go to bed, but I had to stay up a while longer and work on a puzzle just to let my emotions have time to twist and work and be in agony. This isn’t the kind of book you just finish and then go out on the town with your girls. Even now, as I look back through bits of it to see what to share, it calls up complicated emotions.

This book is about rape. It’s written in free verse that’s spare, punchy, and packed with nuance. In a nutshell, Liz and her best friend, Kate, have a fight during their monthly sleepover, Liz goes upstairs to sleep, and when she wakes up, Kate is gone. Kate later avoids her at school. Eventually, when Liz confronts Kate, Kate accuses Liz’s college freshman brother, Mike, of raping her during the sleepover. When Liz confronts Mike, Mike admits that they had sex but also says that he would never have hurt Kate, and he definitely didn’t rape her. Mike’s arrested after Kate presses charges, and a lot of the book leads up to the trial.

What a horrible position to be in. Liz loses both her brother and her best friend at the same time—both are crushed and angry that she doesn’t wholeheartedly believe them, and how can she know whom to believe? As Liz puts it, “Kate says rape and Mike says not.” Mike was Liz’s childhood protector and big brother extraordinaire, so she can’t stomach the idea of him rotting away in jail, but she also can’t stand seeing her best friend hurting while she’s unable to help. Liz and Kate have been best friends since they were kids, but now their friendship is shattered, done in a day, because Kate can’t look at Liz without being reminded of Mike, and Liz doesn’t know how to choose between her friend and her brother when it’s one person’s word against the other’s.

What kills me here is that whatever happened wasn’t Liz’s fault, but she’s collateral damage. She loses her best friend along with all her friends at school who side with Kate over Mike—which is pretty much everyone. Liz walks down the hall and no one will look at her. In her own words, “Good-bye, Photogirl. Hello, Sister of a Rapist.” Tension rises between her and her own boyfriend because of the pressure, grief, and guilt she feels. Photography, her dream and ticket to college, suffers. She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to see her family, her friends, or even herself anymore. Nothing is black and white. Everything feels gray and muddy.

This book is powerful because even though it doesn’t focus on the victim of the rape (or the so-called victim—it depends on whom you believe), it shows the devastation that an experience like that can have on so many people who weren’t directly involved. A long time ago, I had a friend who was accused of sexual molestation. I have no idea if he did it or not, but I know that he went to juvenile prison for a long time. If it was a false charge, that was a terrible thing to happen to him. If it wasn’t, the molestation was a terrible thing to happen to her. Whether or not the charge was true, I’m sure it was crazy hard on both families. And that’s the case in this book, with Liz—whether or not it was rape or, as Mike puts it, “just sex,” the event was hugely traumatizing and life-changing, not just for Kate and Mike, but for their parents, their siblings, their friends.

This is the kind of book you read because it hurts. Because sometimes you don’t get all the answers and it’s one person’s word against the other’s and no matter which way the jury votes, you won’t be happy. You’re conflicted and that doesn’t feel okay but you have to learn to deal with it. You’ve lost something through no fault of your own, but it’s still gone and you have to live past that, whether you’re Liz or Kate. Some of the most poignant lines of the book are at Liz and Kate’s high school graduation, where Liz watches her best friend get her diploma and thinks about who will be her best friend in the future, who will be there with her at her wedding and when she has kids and when she gets old. “Not me,” she thinks. “It won’t be me.” And it’s heartbreaking, because she’s probably right and it’s not her fault.

This book doesn’t heal you. It implies that healing is possible, but really, its main function is to lay out pain in the rawest way possible and let you deal with it as best you can. That’s not comfortable or happy, but life isn’t always comfortable or happy. Be prepared when you read this book, but you should definitely read it.