Dear Medusa is a searing in verse story about the ways our society villianizes girls and women. About sexual abuse and friendship, and all the spaces in between our socialization and families. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s such a gripping read. Keep reading this book review for my full thoughts.
Summary
Sixteen-year-old Alicia Rivers has a reputation that precedes her. But there’s more to her story than the whispers that follow her throughout the hallways at school–whispers that splinter into a million different insults that really mean: a girl who has had sex. But what her classmates don’t know is that Alicia was sexually abused by a popular teacher, and that trauma has rewritten every cell in her body into someone she doesn’t recognize. To the world around her, she’s been cast, like the mythical Medusa, as not the victim but the monster of her own story: the slut who asked for it.
Alicia was abandoned by her best friend, quit the track team, and now spends her days in detention feeling isolated and invisible. When mysterious letters left in her locker hint at another victim, Alicia struggles to keep up the walls she’s built around her trauma. At the same time, her growing attraction to a new girl in school makes her question what those walls are really keeping out.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
TW: sexism, sexual assault, pedophilia, biphobia
Dear Medusa is a book that is emotional and a glimpse at the sexism, privilege, and pains of growing up. Of the ‘monstrosity’ and the defense mechanism, the ways our body is weaponized or portrayed without our consent. I’ve been a fan of Olivia A. Cole for a few books now, and I knew I had to read this one! It’s rage inducing because of how relatable certain scenes are: the predatory nature of some men, the ways they can be wolves in disguise, and how we can want to speak out, but are afraid.
The ways society sees girls. Leers at them, weaponizes their bodies against their consent, paws at them. Throughout, I loved the ways in which Cole works through some thematic metaphors like wolves and sheep and – of course – medusa. It’s about the women who have been silenced and mistreated in Greek mythology, but also about our contemporary women. About the pain we can hold in our hearts, the fear of speaking aloud one secret which would crumble it all.
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How society can say we deserve it, twist it back onto the ones who were taken advantage of. Alicia has to go on a difficult journey to decide if she wants to speak her secrets aloud, while also examining her own white privilege. This novel in verse is stunning and heart wrenching. It highlights the importance of being heard. Of what that would mean for us. For someone to see our hurts and accept us, hold our hand anyways. Find Dear Medusa on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & The Book Depository.