I Have the Right To
A High School Survivor's Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
“A bold, new voice.” —People
“A nuanced addition to the #MeToo conversation.” —Vice
A young survivor tells her searing, visceral story of sexual assault, justice, and healing in this gutwrenching memoir.
The numbers are staggering: nearly one in five girls ages fourteen to seventeen have been the victim of a sexual assault or attempted sexual assault. This is the true story of one of those girls.
In 2014, Chessy Prout was a freshman at St. Paul’s School, a prestigious boarding school in New Hampshire, when a senior boy sexually assaulted her as part of a ritualized game of conquest. Chessy bravely reported her assault to the police and testified against her attacker in court. Then, in the face of unexpected backlash from her once-trusted school community, she shed her anonymity to help other survivors find their voice.
This memoir is more than an account of a horrific event. It takes a magnifying glass to the institutions that turn a blind eye to such behavior and a society that blames victims rather than perpetrators. Chessy’s story offers real, powerful solutions to upend rape culture as we know it today. Prepare to be inspired by this remarkable young woman and her story of survival, advocacy, and hope in the face of unspeakable trauma.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this honest and raw memoir, Prout shares her experience as a 15-year-old victim of sexual assault by an older student at New Hampshire's St. Paul's School in 2014. With a sometimes confusing structure, Prout chronicles her first (and final) year at the boarding school. Leading up to the assault, she writes about battling homesickness, navigating a rocky friendship, and struggling to find her place at a school where, she perceives, "everything was about status, tradition, and hierarchy and guys ruled all three." She also reflects on surviving a terrifying earthquake in Tokyo in 2011, where she temporarily lived with her family. Prout's descriptions of her assault and its crushing emotional aftermath (involving self-doubt, guilt, shame, peer ostracizing, and cyber-bullying) and the agonizing, widely publicized trial that resulted in her assailant's conviction on some, but not all, charges brought against him, are wrenching and painful. Readers will take away a deep appreciation and admiration for Prout's resilience as she transitions into a resolute crusader for the empowerment of victims of sexual violence and for its prevention. Ages 14-up.)
