Book Reviews

I wouldn't have considered myself a big Gabrielle Union fan, but this book was all over the news (in 2016) so I bought it on a whim. Long review short: I can't recommend this book enough. I laughed, I cried, and by the end, I truly felt like Gabrielle and I were friends. (Talk about parasocial...)

This book, which is probably better described as a collection of essays and stories than a traditional book, covers a lot of areas of Gabrielle's life, from obscurity in childhood to adult celebrity. She describes her experiences with light-heartedness at times, self-deprecation at times, and the utmost seriousness at times. One reason people connected to this book is that she takes accountability for former bad habits and misdeeds, detailing times of herself being jealous, mean, and a bully to other women. This book is actually one of the reasons I became interested in celebrity autobiographies and reflection pieces; Gabrielle was so candid. She is honest, reformed, matured, and contributes her growth to years of therapy. (She mentions that many times.)

One of the events/chapters that shocked me and centrally changed Gabrielle as a person was her essay on a violent rape she survived when she was a teenager (Chapter 7: Code 261). She details everything about that experience, from the day it happened to the long-lasting aftermath in her life. 

*Trigger Warning - I will discuss the details next.

When she was 19 and on summer break from college, Gabrielle was working at a Payless shoe store. That summer, a former Payless employee at a nearby store had been robbing Payless stores. Payless management had positively identified him in videos and had a detailed description of him, including a picture of his driver's license, yet Payless did not inform employees that robberies had been taking place or implement additional security measures. (Namely, her store didn't have cameras to deter thieves or a panic button for emergencies.)

One night, a Black man came in while her and a white coworker were cleaning up. Gabrielle's instincts told her to run away, and she had two opportunities to do so, but she ignored them. She didn't want to come across as rude and was conscious of creating negative ideas about Black men to a white coworker, especially when the man hadn't technically done anything wrong. Gabrielle made some great insights later about how women are trained to accommodate everyone around them, even in the face of danger. 

The man robbed the store at gunpoint, took both girls to the back room, forced them to remove their clothes, and violently raped Gabrielle at gunpoint. She temporarily dissociated and only came back to full consciousness when she realized, mid-assault, that he had set the gun down. She grabbed it and shot, missing him and forcing a violent physical confrontation. Eventually, the man bashed her head into the concrete floor and got the gun back. He said he was going to kill her but quickly decided to leave. The man robbed another store and assaulted another female employee even more severely a week later. After being tracked and hunted for another week, he turned himself in. Eventually, he agreed to a plea deal of 33 years in prison for all his crimes.  (Mind bogglingly, even given this context, some people still asked about what Gabrielle was wearing.) 

Gabrielle details her struggle with PTSD and anxiety immediately following the assault and how they have carried through to this day. Gabrielle didn't leave her house unless necessary for over a year, constantly moving from the fear of one random act of violence to another. Even after two decades, some public interactions still trigger her anxiety, which can make life as a celebrity really challenging. Fortunately, soon after her attack, Gabrielle found a rape crisis center and a survivor support group on her college campus (UCLA). It was during her recovery in that survivor group that Gabrielle made the startling realization that she was a "lucky" survivor of rape: though a random act of violence had haunted her, sexual assault by a classmate, friend, teammate, or other person who was STILL on campus was all too common. Gabrielle suddenly felt grateful her rapist was a stranger. Some studies have estimated that 90% of rapes perpetrated against college-age women are acquaintance rapes. Gabrielle recalls that most of the other survivors in her group never saw a conviction or punishment for their assaulters, and many still had to see their rapists regularly in classes or while socializing on campus. 

Gabrielle tried 1:1 therapy at first but that didn't work well for her. She credits a lot of her recovery to the women in her support group modeling recovery and lives that can still experience good things, and even happiness, after assault. While they still experienced trauma and struggles individually, Gabrille often relied on her community of peers and they guided her through periods of extreme anxiety and depression. This highlights the importance of having different post-trauma support options for different survivor needs.

Part of Gabrielle's book dedication is probably the best endorsement I can give you to read it:

"I dedicate this book to those who have been humiliated and wanted to hide away forever. To those who have been broken and superglue wasn’t enough to help. To those who have felt frozen in fear and shame. To those who have kept smiling as their throats were closing up. To those who thought they had all the answers but realized they were sorely ignorant. I see you."

If you don't know this comedian and talk-show/podcast host, all you know to know is that Trevor Noah is an extremely eloquent writer and orator. This book is a personal memoir that uses childhood stories to highlight life as a child born into apartheid while being of mixed racial heritage. The title stems from laws at the time that made sexual relationships between black and white people illegal. The title directly comes from this quote: "The doctors took [my mom] up to the delivery room, cut open her belly, and reached in and pulled out a half-white, half-black child who violated any number of laws, statutes, and regulations — I was born a crime."

In this book, Trevor covers heavy themes like apartheid (racism, segregation, slavery, etc.), domestic violence, and the cycle of poverty, but he explores them in an almost light-hearted way. I really enjoyed it and so did a lot of other people. The New Tork Times and NPR, among many others, put this book on their list of the best books of 2016. I highly recommend listening to his audiobook as well. There is a good amount of historical and political context added into his stories, and Trevor includes many African words in different tribal languages to illustrate his points. (Interestingly, Trevor later makes a point that language both unites and divides us. Read the book to learn more about that.) He fluently speaks Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana, Tsonga, Afrikaans, and English, so listening to Trevor speaking those words in their original form makes the book more that much more memorable.

I mostly want to focus my book review on the stories of violence Trevor experienced through his mother's abusive relationship with her partner. However, in an interesting bit of foreshadowing near the beginning of the book, Trevor included a story about feeling betrayed when his beloved dog starting showing his neighbor a lot of affection. At that time, Trevor's mom taught him something he says he still reminds his friends today: we do not own the object of our love, especially if that object is a living person or animal.

*Trigger warning - I will be discussing details of a physically abusive relationship below.

Trevor recalls really liking his mom's boyfriend, Abel, at first, but feeling concerned when his mom and Abel married; something was just off. It's important to note that Abel is from the Zulu tribe, the main opposing tribe of Trevor's mother (Xhosa), so Trevor and his mother already had a lot of cultural differences from Abel. Most obviously, Trevor's mother was an extremely devout Christian and Abel frequently came home drunk. One night, an argument between them escalated into Abel hitting Trevor's mother. She immediately took herself and her kids to the police station, but the police refused to charge Abel. Mindbogglingly, they actually called Abel and had him take the family home. And since Trevor's maternal grandfather often hit his grandmother, Trevor's grandmother put in a lot of effort to convince his mom not to leave. (Often, victims and perpetrators of intimate partner violence were also witnesses to it in their childhood, and that's a pattern continued here with Trevor's mom.)

Abel left Trevor's mother alone after that, but started hitting Trevor a few years later. Trevor's mother also hit him, but Trevor distinguishes the difference by intention - he believes his mom hit him out out of her love for him, whereas Abel enjoyed it, or at least was indifferent about the reasons for hitting him. After a few years of that, Abel started hitting Trevor's mother again. (It's worth noting here that gradual increases in violence are predictable when there are no intervening factors.)

When he became old enough to start defending himself from Abel, Trevor's mother feared for his safety. Abel, like many abusers, had a sensitive ego and not acquiescing was dangerous. As such, she had Trevor leave the household. Eventually, she moved with her two other sons into a shack in the backyard. Trevor notes struggling for a long time to understand why his extremely strong-willed, disciplined, devout Christian mother wouldn't just leave her abuser. (This is also normal - there is often a lot more going into a victim's decision to stay with an abuser than people outside the relationship can fully understand.)

Trevor's mom eventually left Abel and remarried, but not long after that Abel drunkenly surprised their family at her house. (Trevor was essentially estranged from his mom during this time so he wasn't there.) Abel had a gun and intended to kill the whole family. Trevor's mom jumped in front of her two young sons and took a bullet to her body while she gave them time to run away. Abel tried to shoot her again in the head at point-blank range, but the gun misfired. She escaped to her car with the older son but Abel shot her in the head while they were driving away. Miraculously, Trevor's mother made a full recovery and was even able to leave the hospital within 4 days. (The bullets missed all of her major organs and there weren't even any bullet fragments in her body!)

Abel's family member convinced him to turn himself in and eventually, Abel pled guilty to attempted murder. Astoundingly, he served no time in prison. I believe this is one of the reasons Trevor's mom struggled to leave him - she knew he would pursue her and the criminal justice system (in that place, at that time) would not be generous, or even minimally adequate, toward a Black female victim.

One of the reasons I highly value this book is Trevor's memorable illustration of the heavy toll witnessing abuse had on him as a teenager. This is a perspective that we often don't hear about - the impact of trauma on young witnesses. When it comes to intimate partner violence and abuse, the circle of impact is wide, but for those closest to an abuse survivor, especially children, the impact is deep and long-lasting. This book was a reminder of that.