The Book of You – Claire Kendal – Bookrush 5

Trigger warning for rape, sexual violence & stalking

Blurb:
You left me no choice, Clarissa.
I just want to take you home, Clarissa.
I know your darkest secrets, Clarissa.

Clarissa is becoming more and more frightened of her colleague, Rafe. He won’t leave her alone, and he refuses to take no for an answer. He is always there.

Being selected for jury service is a relief. The courtroom is a safe haven, a place where Rafe can’t be. But as a violent tale of kidnap and abuse unfolds, Clarissa begins to see parallels between her own situation and that of the young woman on the witness stand.

Realizing that she bears the burden of proof, Clarissa unravels the twisted, macabre fairytale that Rafe has spun around them – and discovers that the ending he envisions is more terrifying than she could have imagined.

My Thoughts
This book follows Clarissa as she finds herself receiving the unwanted attentions of Rafe, a man who she works with. She is told by the police that they need hard proof before they can do anything to help her.

I found this book really good at raising awareness for stalking and how emotionally and physically debilitating it can be.

Clarissa has been called upon to be a juror in a sexual violence case and starts to see the similarities between herself and the victim and she can’t help feeling that if she takes her case to court the lawyers will start blaming her for what is happening.

I really enjoyed how fast paced this was, but it was also really hard to read some bits of it because it was quite graphic, but I do understand why Kendal did this. It is important to the story and for awareness-sake, Kendal also includes information about what to do if you are being stalked. Granted I don’t know how true this is but it does seem really helpful.

I did find that some characters were put in the book just for characters sake and didn’t really see the benefit of them to the story, but nonetheless it was a really good book.