The Shadows We Cast By Sarah Tinsley
The Shadows We Cast looks at the relationship between a victim and a perpetrator. This story deals with sexual assault and readers should be aware that there is some sexual content in this story. If you are sensitive to this subject be warned.
Sarah Tinsley explores a sensitive subject with this debut novel in a creative way that is guaranteed to leave readers with a lot to talk about when they reach the end of this book. This one will be a good choice for a book club.
The story is told from Nina and Eric’s perspective, changing from one to the other from chapter to chapter. This allows you to see events from the victim and the perpetrators view which at times leaves you unsettled. This is a difficult book to read and initially, I battled to become invested. However, the more I read the angrier I become as events started clarifying. This book will stir emotions in you as you flick the pages.
After attending a party where she drank way too much, Nina wakes up in a strange bed and realises that something terrible has happened to her. As the days pass, memories of that night return and Nina slowly starts putting the pieces together. She was raped, and she is convinced that Will, the guy she rejected that night is responsible. Nina is not able to confide in anyone, but she is determined to make Will’s life a living misery for what he did to her.
When she meets Eric, a peculiar, nice guy and he offers to help her, she feels justified in her revenge plan. However, her need for revenge consumes her, leaving her isolated with only Eric to depend on. A man she has only just met.
I struggled through the first couple of chapters of this book, I felt a little confused, not quite sure where the story was going. The more I read, the more invested I become and soon felt consumed with anger. This book deals with sexual assault, and questions if it is rape if there is no violence involved. Nina fears that she will be blamed for what happened to her because she did not fight. The woman doubted herself for everything, from what she wearing to how much she had to drink. While the rapist felt he didn’t do anything wrong.
This is not an easy read, but it manages to stir all the required emotions to make sure the reader will have a lot to say by the time they read the last page.
The author created characters that are guaranteed to evoke a reaction from the reader. Nina is an intelligent, successful woman. Yet when she is raped, she questions herself, her strength and the choices she made that led to the event. She is consumed by guilt and the need for revenge is so huge it leads her just about destroying her own life.
Eric on the other hand is a serious piece of work, how the author imagined this character into existence is beyond me. This man’s thoughts will leave you amazed.
This book will haunt you as you turn the pages, it is crafty and tells a dark story that will leave you eager to share your thoughts. The author wants readers to talk about rape when they finish reading this book. She shows the importance of support and the need for victims to feel that they will be believed – not judged for what happened to them.
If you are looking for a dark read with a clear message that will leave you wanting to share your thoughts when you finish the book, then this is the book for you. Just be prepared to have your emotions seriously stirred.
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9781838279875 The catalyst for The Shadow We Cast is sexual assault. Through clever writing, understanding for both the survivor and the perpetrator is built. The gripping plot and the dual narratives show how people try to make sense of their mistakes. It’s a page turner. I will be on the look out for more novels by this debut author. Highly recommended. 9781838279875 Sarah Tinsley has penned a clever page-turner with deft use of dramatic irony. She lets us as readers know something the protagonists don't, but keeps it really suspenseful as we're desperate to know when the characters will work it out.
This is an unflinching look at what happens immediately after sexual assault. It's given rightful treatment as a pivotal event, and shows us not just what the victim, Nina, goes through but also how Eric, the assailant, struggles to understand consent. Sarah makes us examine how our society has shortchanged us in its lack of honest discussion.
The characters are incredibly well-drawn, with due weight being given to family and class backgrounds, how those might affect their reactions to the incident. Gender issues and microaggressions, male entitlement and toxic masculinity all come into play in little ways throughout, artfully woven in to the narrative. 9781838279875 I was sent a copy of this book for review.
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Nina was raped. She was drunk at a house party, had a fight with a guy she had been kissing and then decides to lie down to sleep it off. However, later a man comes into the room and sexually assaults her. Nina freezes in place, too scared to react, as she is manhandled into position and raped. Nina is determined not to be a passive victim and decides to seek revenge on the man she believes raped her to make him pay for his actions. But has she got the wrong guy? Will her obsession with his character assignation lead her to sacrifice her job, friendships and mental health?
Eric thinks he is the quintessential 'nice guy'. After having kinky sex at a party, he quickly becomes obsessed with his one-night stand. He tracks the woman down and inserts himself into her life. She doesn’t recognise him but he is not put off. The woman's name is Nina and as he gets to know her he realises that what he thought was great sex turns out to be rape. He doesn’t confess and instead helps her attack the man she thinks is responsible. But this forces him to delve into what kind of man he is, to face the facts of the violent assault he has committed and start to question whether he is the nice guy he thinks he is.
Will Nina find out the truth about Eric or will he get off scot-free while another man is accused of her rape instead? Will Nina ever get justice for her trauma and know what occurred?
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟. This was a tough read with a well-written plot and complex characters. The representation of rape as freezing/not fighting back is a very important aspect of this story. I know someone who felt more shame and questioned whether the rape even took place due to lack of fighting off and verbally saying no to their rapist, so this side of sexual assault needs to be discussed more. Eric made my skin crawl and his manipulation of Nina and the situation after he realises what he had done made me livid. Hard topics are explored but ones that need to be more freely talked about to destigmatise them in today's culture.
TW: Rape
9781838279875 Note: I was sent an advance copy from the publishers for review. Also, this novel concerns rape and its aftermath.
This is a really intriguing read and not something I have encountered before - the story of someone who has been raped and the story of their rapist. What's intriguing is how it's treated with some nuance - the characters are not painted simply as victims or aggressors and there's a lot to unpack. It's also fascinating to see both perspectives and see the reactions of other characters, which while unravelling an emotional story, also examines patriarchal beliefs about women and the crime of rape. It's not an easy read in some parts, but it's also an important read for men and women alike. If you like fiction that's challenging and that examines societal expectations with interesting characters, you'll enjoy this. 9781838279875
What if you couldn’t recognise the violence in others? Or in yourself?
Nina refuses to accept the role of passive victim after being sexually assaulted. She becomes obsessed with an online vendetta that risks her job, her friendships, and her sanity.
Eric thinks, if anything, he’s too nice. But when he takes advantage of a stranger he is forced to confront the kind of man he really is.
The Shadows We Cast is a dark novel about consent and control that unsettles ideas about victims and villains. The Shadows We Cast
Started off well, realistic and puts across a good point but then it falls into too much of a fictional and inauthentic portrayal of a woman being friends with her rapist, after the fact, and then annoyed me when there was no conclusion. 9781838279875 I do call myself a feminist and these subject matters are close to my heart. I think that the author captures perfectly the turmoil a victim goes through, the lengths a victim takes to get believed and how much a victim is judged along the way.
Having the two viewpoints is very clever and it toys with perceptions well.
The book starts with a very powerful moment and it keeps its edge throughout. Its dark, sinister and challenges the reader in a smart way. Difficult subject matters are explored and tackled head on with a true to life story, character reactions and side characters playing their part.
Evocative, powerful, tense. 9781838279875 Nina is sexually assaulted at a party - something she only gradually comes to realise in the days that follow. Her memory of that night is somewhat hazy, but she believes it was a guy called Will that she has been having an on-off relationship with. As Nina tries to come to terms with what has happened to her, she becomes consumed with the need to get even with Will through an on-line vendetta that risks her losing everything.
Will's friend Eric is also at the party and is actually the one who has raped Nina. He considers himself a nice guy, and manoeuvres himself into her life as a shoulder for her to cry upon with the intention of having a relationship with her, but he is eventually forced to confront the truth about himself - that he took advantage of a stranger.
As the narratives of Nina and Eric swap back and forth this dark story explores the nature of consent, intent, and the relationship between victim and perpetrator.
The Shadows We Cast is a cross-over between a psychological thriller and literary fiction tale, published as part of the SRL Publishing Breaking the Silence collection, featuring books that speak out about important issues and amplifying underrepresented voices. It is designed to open up the conversation around rape and sexual assault, delving into themes around control and consent, and from the very beginning it asks some uncomfortable questions - especially through the way it gives equal voice to victim and perpetrator. This makes it a challenging read, and I will admit that there were times when the nature of the material had me putting it to one side and reading something a little less unsettling for a while.
There are swathes of black and white in this story, that allow Tinsley to bring clarity to the rights and wrongs of the incident itself, and what follows in the aftermath, in a way I have not seen before. However, for me, it is the way she blurs the lines between the moral issues that is most intriguing - it is the parts of the story that sit in the morass of shades of grey that make this novel so compelling. There is lot to unpick here, going beyond the gut-wrenching scene at the beginning of the book and taking in wider aspects of attitudes to sexual behaviour (especially through the character of Will, and the friends and family of Nina and Eric), and every issue is a thought provoking one.
This is a powerful and discomfiting read, but the threads are handled in such a way that this really does fulfil its ambition to open up an unflinching dialogue about some very knotty issues, and I have to take my hat off to Sarah Tinsley for the way in which she manages this so well. This would make a perfect book club read for groups not afraid to push their boundaries a little - I promise you will find plenty to talk about!
9781838279875 The premise of this book hinged on the characters and they were very well written. Nina and Eric made for very interesting perspectives to read the story form, not just because they were one opposite side of the assault but also because of how they reacted and how they viewed themselves. It also allows us to gain more of an insight into how we were reading about it. The other characters and their effect on the story were also interesting but what was most interesting to me was how the other perspective viewed them. For example how Nina viewed Will and how Eric viewed Holly in opposition to how their friends saw them. I think it added a nice complexity to the book and further layers to the story.
The story itself was gripping, which I think was mostly to do with the fact that we had a much better understanding of what was happening than the characters and therefore got to see them start to piece everything together as they found out more about what happened that night. On top of this, we had two very different perspectives on what happened. My favourite part was when it all finally came crashing towards the realisation of what had actually happened on both sides and how that drastically changed the situation that the characters had found themselves in.
The writing was engaging and, from my perspective at least, the sexual assault and ramifications of this were handled well. I raced through this book becasue the dual perspective kept making me want to find out more about the characters and how they were dealing with the assault and all the events after. And then of course the realisations that they each game to throughout the book!
Make sure though that if you want to read this book and think it could trigger you make sure to find some trigger warnings!
I was given a copy of this in exchange for an honest review as part of a blog tour. 9781838279875 The author writes so well that you are transported to her world. For some, this could be an uneasy experience as the subject matter is highly charged -- non-consensual, rough sex with a drunk and barely conscious woman. The subsequent trauma and fall out is handled with intelligence and sensitivity.
The use of two POVs -- one the female victim's, the other the male who assaulted her, worked well. The characterisation and settings were excellent. Through close third person story-telling we get under both victim and predator's skins and into their everyday lives. Their day-to-day challenges and even their drinking and eating habits, lend weight to the story. This worked particularly well for Eric, who was a nice person on one level and someone who could be viewed as a victim of his past associations -- a bullying, indifferent and violent father and a bullying, braggart of a 'best friend'. We also got to see an unpleasant side of Nina -- her obsessive vengefulness, without the full facts, and her casual and damaging actions against a good ally to cover her own shortfalls.
In short, this was a beautifully-written and well executed story that asks as many questions as it answers. 9781838279875
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