3 out of 4 stars.

80 rapes between 2010 – 2012 just on the Missoula Montana’s college campus. What a tough subject to discuss, research, write about, and not to mention, for it to be a real fact for our society to get educated on. Krakauer, the author of such recognizable books as, “Into The Wild” and “Into Thin Air” took on this challenge. After hearing a friend of his had been raped twice by two different people but decided to not come forward to the police his interest on the topic got intrigued. How can over 300,000 rapes occur (that we know about) each year and only 54 percent get reported? He decided to dig in of what one’s refrain would be to come forward.  The focus is 5 different women of the Missoula campus that came forward to say they were raped. The results are the book “Missoula”.

I wanted to be able to give this book a high rating because I praise Krakauer for tackling such a disturbing and uncomfortable topic. Also, he tries to do so by showing both sides of the coin; victim and suspected perpetrator. No easy task! However, the book seemed very bland and repetitive to me. I found myself getting lost in a lot of the court case logistics and during the scenes describing the rape I felt he repeated the same couple of lines over and over again. I realize this is real life stuff but I compare it to watching the news for 5 hours straight on the same awful story. I say this lightly because I am in no position to judge ANYTHING on this topic or how others should feel reading this. I am only stating my opinion about this book in particular and I whole heartily know how gentle this subject is to review.

I think no matter what age one is reading this book they are going to be absolutely shocked by the nonchalant attitude the law took when listening to these rape stories. I learned that reporting rape and actually getting the accused convicted is a mountain of a struggle. There are a lot of hard personal questions to answer, painful examinations by a doctor, and trying to convince other’s of your character. I don’t blame the victim for leaving a situation and saying, wait, I thought I was the one that was going through the hard time here? There are also stories in here of rape claims that turned out to be a lie. Now what? You have to always fear consensual sex could lead to the boy who cried wolf? Very sticky situation to say the least.

My favorite part of the book, by far, was that I was able to be introduced to these strong and powerful women that came forward and said they were raped. All on the young side and took on the justice system with force. They understood that unless they raised their hand they could be leaving other women at risk of getting raped in the future. Strength by numbers is astonishing and I am just so proud to read that there are people out there that are so courageous to make a stand during their own difficult time.

I learned many things while reading this book and I would love to hear other’s opinions if they read it as well. I find myself starting to write notes but I back track because I believe the subject brings up so many points on its own and I believe that Krakauer did a poor job writing about such a profound topic. In all fairness he definitely had his work cut out for him.

On a lighter note here is Sparky after finishing the book and waiting for his treat!