Book Review.

Not so 'Lucky' Alice Sebold's autobiographical novel 'Lucky' is a memoir of Sebold's violent rape in University, illustrating the conviction and court case combined with a serious of comebacks and downfalls.
Set mainly at Syracuse University this book details Sebold's actions as a freshman student, as she is sexually attacked in a park off campus, and how she is told by the police a previous murder had taken place at the same location, hence forth her being 'Lucky' to be alive.
When stating her reasons for writing this novel Sebold said "I wrote it is because tons of people have had similar stories, not exactly the same but similar, and I want the word 'rape' to be used easily in conversation. My desire would be that somehow my writing would take a little bit of the taboo or the weirdness of using that word away. No one's work is going to accomplish the years of work that need to be done, but it can help." 
However, in my personal opinion 'Lucky' just didn't do justice to the horrific act of rape to comfort any victim. Although I found the first Chapter enthralling (the original description of the attack itself) the remainder of the book continuously repeated back to the original act as she told person after person the horror that she had suffered. This makes the story incredibly difficult and tiring to stick with, and only seems to perk up when a further rape appears further in the story.
Now don't get me wrong, I couldn't even imagine how damaging rape must be on an individual, but Sebold's attempt to rebuild herself seems fixated on her physical well being rather than her mental and in my opinion only expressed one sentence of motivation for any reader. "You save yourself or you remain unsaved."
It also appeared that she remained naive and immature after her ordeal numerously switching from crushes and boyfriends, and almost ditching friends who had helped her through the initial event. In the 'Aftermath' that follows Sebold's life she still seems unstable and destructive, a quality I don't think is at all inspiring or interesting to read.
Sebold attempts to portray anger through her assignments in poetry but fails to use any emotion in her literature, which on such a sensitive subject I expected much more depth and feeling. Combined with her basic use of description and a unorganized diary of events (focusing too much on insignificant details) I was relieved to finish, rather than sad to see it end.

Don't get me wrong 'Lucky' is an easy read and does touch on some very difficult issues but in my opinion not very successfully. I'm not entirely sure if I found this book such a failure simply due to that fact that I probably expected more from a best selling author (The Lovely Bones) yet I would recommend this to anyone who hasn't experienced a touching autobiographical novel. It doesn't even compare to some of the stories I've read but it makes a good starting point to anyone whose not used to a bit of violence entangled in reality.

Next: Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road.