jessybug's Book Journey
this is one of those books that should be read in schools. excerpts from this should be in textbooks. the amount of times i tried not to tear up while listening to the audiobook in public is too many to count (from sheer rage and from when things hit a little too close to home).
this is a long memoir that's a little hard to get through on the account of the heavy topics yes, but also because it unflinchingly goes into minute details of Chanel's experience with the court system, the unending mundane horrors of it. it feels like we as the audience go through it all alongside Chanel. Her voice is so patient and so unyielding and it's because of people like her we have even a minuscule amount of change in the judicial system.
as a memoir, it's also such a well-crafted piece of writing. she's able to establish her setting and surroundings with such clear tangible imagery and weave intense emotion throughout. if i had a physical copy, it would be marked up to hell.
i would recommend everyone to read or listen to this book asap. definitely one of my top reads of the year.
jessybug commented...
16w
Know My Name: A Memoir
Chanel Miller
Chapter 1, and I’m already emotionally wrung out.
I knew this memoir would be difficult to read, but I wasn’t prepared for how much the opening would affect me. Not because of graphic details, but because of the quiet, ordinary moments that reveal just how easily a person’s humanity can be overlooked in the aftermath of trauma.
Chanel Miller’s writing is incredibly powerful. Even in the earliest pages, she has a way of making you feel the confusion, vulnerability, and loss of control without ever needing to sensationalize it. Listening to her narrate her own story only amplifies that impact.
More than anything, this chapter reminded me how important those first interactions are. The people who meet someone on the worst day of their life have the power to either deepen the trauma or help restore a small piece of their humanity. Compassion shouldn’t feel remarkable, yet this chapter made me realize how often it does.
If this is only the beginning, I have a feeling this book is going to etch itself into my bones.
jessybug commented...
16w
Know My Name: A Memoir
Chanel Miller
Chapter 1, and I’m already emotionally wrung out.
I knew this memoir would be difficult to read, but I wasn’t prepared for how much the opening would affect me. Not because of graphic details, but because of the quiet, ordinary moments that reveal just how easily a person’s humanity can be overlooked in the aftermath of trauma.
Chanel Miller’s writing is incredibly powerful. Even in the earliest pages, she has a way of making you feel the confusion, vulnerability, and loss of control without ever needing to sensationalize it. Listening to her narrate her own story only amplifies that impact.
More than anything, this chapter reminded me how important those first interactions are. The people who meet someone on the worst day of their life have the power to either deepen the trauma or help restore a small piece of their humanity. Compassion shouldn’t feel remarkable, yet this chapter made me realize how often it does.
If this is only the beginning, I have a feeling this book is going to etch itself into my bones.
jessybug commented...
10w
The lack of empathy for Chanel was eye opening for me at the time, but I also see, looking back, the ways in which we in the US was not as culturally progressive as we believed ourselves to be at the time. It shines a fascinating and heartbreaking light on the path we have tread to get to where we are now.
In January of 2015, I was in the second semester of my freshman year of college. In January 2015, Chanel Miller was sexually assaulted on the ground beside a dumpster at a Stanford party by Brock Turner.
In her memoir, Know My Name, she shares the events of and after the assault. I remember being engrossed by the trial when it was taking place in 2015 and 2016. I remember thinking that Chanel, better known to us at the time as Emily Doe, could have been any one of us, and was so many of us.
Victims of rape and sexual assault so often have their voices ripped from them. Chanel shares her story, sparing no detail just as she had to live through every horrific moment, and in doing so, reclaims her own voice. Her own identity.
The book includes her Victim Impact Statement which she read aloud at Turner’s (embarrassingly but, unfortunately, not unpredictably lax) sentence hearing. I remember reading this when it was initially released and crying out for her pain, for the pain of all of those who have been raped and sexually assaulted, and for the pain and fear so many of us feel knowing that if something happened to us and we lived to see the other side, we would be asked why we had so much to drink, why we were alone at night, why we were wearing whatever we chose to wear. That we would be painted as the antagonist for “ruining the life” of the “kind, polite” man who violated us.
This is one of the most important books I have ever read, and one of the most challenging. I have so much respect and appreciation for her vulnerability. Chanel is taking hold of the narrative and telling her story, without the manipulation of the judicial system or the media.
Chanel is a master in her storytelling, weaving in so much nuance and truly painting a picture of her journey while sharing with the reader the intricacies of her life - before, during, and after the events. I think everyone should read this book.
© 2025 Pagebound
jessybug commented...
25w
I agree completely, one of the most important books of this decade, and I think it will go down as one of the most important of this century.