Know My Name – Book Review

She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford’s campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral–viewed by eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress; it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time.

Now she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. It was the perfect case, in many ways–there were eyewitnesses, Turner ran away, physical evidence was immediately secured. But her struggles with isolation and shame during the aftermath and the trial reveal the oppression victims face in even the best-case scenarios. Her story illuminates a culture biased to protect perpetrators, indicts a criminal justice system designed to fail the most vulnerable, and, ultimately, shines with the courage required to move through suffering and live a full and beautiful life.

Know My Name will forever transform the way we think about sexual assault, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable and speaking truth to the tumultuous reality of healing. It also introduces readers to an extraordinary writer, one whose words have already changed our world. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic.

Many would have heard of the Stanford Rape case–Emily Doe being raped by a “promising” Standford swimmer at a fraternity party. How the judge ended up giving a lighter sentence to this so called swimmer and how Emily Doe’s victim impact statement soon read by millions of people around the world, causing to change the laws in California, recall the judge and the many secret victims who faced the similar experience as Emily Doe come out in the open and retell their experiences and story. This Emily Doe is known by a name–Chanel Miller and she tells about her harrowing experience about the case.

This was really beautifully written–I have to say, her writing is almost poetic, mesmerizing, the use of descriptive words makes the reader also feels like they are also in the same environment as Chanel. There were so many emotional and heartbreaking moments and the fact that this all happened in real life and how Chanel dealt with her feelings and emotions is…words cannot describe. This book must be read by everyone and if you haven’t read already, you should go ahead and get the book. I am not really a fan of non fiction but this book actually heavily impacted me as it talks about how to deal with the emotional trauma, the stress and pressure you have to go through and the whole pain and humiliation that the victims had to go through both in real and social media.

Worth five stars.