Cole, Olivia A. - Dear Medusa

Cole, Olivia A. - Dear MedusaDear Medusa Author: Olivia A. Cole Genre: Poetry, Young Adult, Contemporary Pages: 400 Publisher: Ember Release Date: March 12, 2024 Format: Paperback Size (in cm): 21 (height) x 13. 9 (width) x 2 (depth) Synopsis: This searing and intimate novel in verse follows a sixteen year old girl coping with sexual abuse as she grapples with how to reclaim her story, her anger, and her body in a world that seems determined to punish her for the sin of

Dear Medusa

Author: Olivia A. Cole

Genre: Poetry, Young Adult, Contemporary

Pages: 400

Publisher: Ember

Release Date: March 12, 2024

Format: Paperback

Size (in cm): 21 (height) x 13.9 (width) x 2 (depth)

Synopsis:

This searing and intimate novel in verse follows a sixteen-year-old girl coping with sexual abuse as she grapples with how to reclaim her story, her anger, and her body in a world that seems determined to punish her for the sin of surviving.

"This is more than a story about sexual violence—this book is about race, sexuality, love, and how anger can be a catalyst for healing."
—Gabrielle Union, bestselling author, actress, and producer

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 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 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.

"[This] fierce and brightly burning feminist roar…paints a devastating and haunting portrait of a vulnerable young woman discovering the power of her voice, her courage, and her rage." —Samira Ahmed, New York Times bestselling author of Internment and Hollow Fires

LGBT Themes:

• Sapphic
• Asexual
• Bisexual

Relevant Tags:

Poetry, Young Adult, YA, Contemporary, LGBT, Mental Health, Queer, Fiction, Feminism, Novel In Verse