Sarah's Reviews > Salem Falls

I am unpleasantly surprised by how few reviews there are of this book by people that understand why this book is offensive. I was appalled by it. The only reason I gave it two stars was that it wasn't uninteresting to read - partly because I was hoping she'd end up making it classy, but she never did. Piccoult involves rape in many of her books, and this isn't the first one I've read where the rape never actually happened and the girl is painted as someone who ruined an innocent boy's life.

You're suppose to believe that Jack is so pure of heart and naive that he believes its ok to take girls outside so they can partly undress for the sake of a teachable moment, and that its fine to tuck a student's bra in his pocket in broad daylight...and keep it, and take said girl to buy birth control, are you KIDDING me? Whether he actually had sex with her or not, his relationship with this girl is inappropriate. When he moves to Salem Falls, he gets into a Crucible-esque situation where some students falsely accuse him of rape. We get it, Piccoult, you're trying to show how your story parallels The Crucible - you don't need to include quotes from the play very chapter, its very very clear what you're trying to do here.

This part of the plot offended me because Gillian is painted to be a vindictive vixen, and the whole trial is about discrediting her and dragging her name through the mud, which is why real rape victims don't come forward and rapists get away with it. Piccoult was perpetuating the horrible stereotype that girls make up rape because they are bored or embarrassed, and though I suppose its fine to write a book about a false accusation, in this story there was OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that Jack did it, (in both his present and past situation) that having unlikely unrealistic explanations for how he was innocent despite this evidence is just inappropriate. 99 out of 100 times in real life when that kind of evidence is presented in a case like his, I can guarantee you he is guilty. So its seems counterproductive for Piccoult to enforce doubt about rape trials, and she painted Gillian as a scheming, manipulative psycho school girl, despite actually, Gillian was being raped by her own father.

So this real crime goes completely unpunished, and is written as if she must deserve it for being conniving, as if she is evil instead of a damaged girl acting out. But guys, what's important is that Jack and Addie live happily ever after!!

Another reviewer pointed something out which I had completely missed, was how Jack avoided being raped in jail by being clever, so he got to keep his dignity. It's not a huge deal, but this is done so that his character isn't tainted (readers wouldn't find him so attractive if he'd been degraded this way, even though this would have given him interesting insight and would have drawn a parallel to the situations).

Probably the most offensive part of this book is when Addie has a friendly 'forgiving' conversation with her rapist, who is supposed to be a redeeming character, a good guy who just happened to rape someone once. This stuff happens, everyone makes mistakes type of thing. You don't trust rape someone out of temporary bad judgement. And this crime goes completely unpunished as well, and its supposed to be seen as healthy for Addie to 'forgive' him, and for them to be on good terms, setting his conscience at ease.

So much about this book rubbed me the wrong way, so I'm not even going to discuss whether it was well written or if the characters were three dimensional, or anything along those lines.