Liar Liar by Laurie Katz

 

*Disclosure of material connection- I received the book in exchange for my honest thoughts. I was not required to write a positive review and all opinions stated are 100% my own. 

About the book-

Like any student about to start university, Laurie Katz was excited to see what the year would bring. Little did she know that just three weeks into her first term, her life would come crashing down around her. What had started as a fun night out with friends ended with Laurie, alone with a terrible secret: she had been raped. Traumatized and confused, she set out to get justice against her attacker. But when the authorities at her university dismissed her case, and warned her that she could be expelled, she was left unsure where to turn. It seemed as though things couldn't get worse, then her attacker filed his own case. Laurie's story is a brave and honest reminder of the injustice still felt in society around sexual abuse. Laurie offers readers her advice, and provides them with the hope that they too can overcome a similar trauma.

My thoughts-

First of all, props to Lauri Katz for being candid and vunerable. This could not have been an easy book to write. She shared pretty much everything, including the parts that some might perceive as making her look bad. I was enraged during the good majority of this book about the way the university handled this case, but sadly I wasn't shocked. We have seen it time and again in the news, even still in 2020, where the victims of these assaults at colleges all over the country get blamed and the actual assaultors get off either scott free or with maybe a slap on the wrist. Laurie's school took it to a new extreme, opening a case against her and finding her guilty of making it all up. It is evident that the school was attempting to bury that this happened to save face and not make the school look bad and some of the things the adults in charge at the university said to her were absolutely atrotious. This account of Ms. Katz's case really resonates with me because she was in college at the same time as my little sister and this could have easily been her story. Or any college woman's story. And it is definitely time to change that. The victim blaming has got to stop. The holding the guilty party accountable needs to be the new normal- which it always should have been.

If you have a similar story and need to talk to someone, there is help. Please reach out to National Sexual Assault Hotline or call them at 1-800-656-4673