Dear Medusa
by Olivia A. Cole
Olivia A. Cole
Labyrinth Road
384 pages
€ 17
My grading : 5/5 stars
TW : rape, sexual abuse
The Synopsis
I’m starting to realize
that a woman doesn’t get that mad
so mad that her hair turns to snakes
so mad that her rage turns blood to boulder
all on her own.
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 mean: 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 story: 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.
poetry · rape · youth · teenage · feminism · high school · LBTQIA+
My Opinion
Alicia is sixteen, and we immediately discover a teenager consumed by her past and the bullying she suffers at school. But above all, we quickly discover that she has been, and still is, abused by one of her teachers, nicknamed “The Colonel” and adored by all. Between high school classes, her odd job in a fast-food restaurant, family arguments, loneliness and her dates with men sometimes much older than her, Alicia suffocates.
What can I say? First thing first, “Dear Medusa” has been a huge, gigantic crush. Without a doubt in my top 3 best reads of the year. This novel bowled me over.
By the themes it tackles, first of all. Asexuality, bi-sexuality, feminism, racism, white privilege, intersectionality, empowerment, mental health: all these subjects are tackled (sometimes with their feet firmly planted in the ground, we’re not going to lie) through the prism of different characters, all very different, including a sociologist who sets up a discussion group within the high school. Through the friendships Alicia forges, we find an incredible plurality of experiences that women can have, and they challenged me a lot about my own thought patterns. The characters are incredibly believable, deep and endearing (Blake >>>). If you want a parallel, the atmosphere reminded me a lot of Alyssa in The End of The F***ing World, a slap in the face!
It’s a hard-hitting text, breathtaking (literally) in its accuracy and harshness. I found the power of the themes and characters divinely served by the free verse format, which makes the reading as poetic as it is captivating. The writing is just sublime. And this cover by @naranjalidad…
Can’t wait for it to be translated, because this is truly a book that must exist and be read. I don’t understand why we don’t hear more about it!!! It gave me chills.
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About the Author
Tosca Noury is an author, podcaster and literary content creator. In 2021, she self-published her first poetry collection La force de vivre, followed a year later by De l’orage naît un soleil, published by Courrier du Livre. Immersed in books from the age of ten, she has been sharing her passion for writing and reading on social networks and in her podcast Lit Thé Ratures since 2016.