Welcome to our blog for 2023! As another year is set to unfold, stay tuned for a variety of content relating to our biggest passions: maintaining consent, prioritising healthy relationships and reminding you of your rights regarding sex. We’ll be responding to breaking news stories in Australia and across the globe, spilling our opinions on consent culture and providing you with resources you can use to stay informed, learn more or just to keep your brain busy.
So, keep an eye on this space!
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As the Summer heat turns up here in Australia, we’re sure you’re taking some time out to kick back and relax, even as some of us return to work and school. Many of us choose to indulge in a good book in order to chill out, and what better way to completely forget about all our impending responsibilities than immersing ourselves in stories and other worlds.
As a self-proclaimed book nerd obsessed with stories from the past and the present, I am continuously looking for ways to temporarily escape from reality.
In 2023, our libraries are expanding beyond measures with books, books and more books. It’s easy to get lost in a constantly unravelling spool of genres, authors and every writing movement ever. We’re totally on board for this, but it’s definitely a lot. Especially when figuring out where to start your Summer reading list.
Not only are there so many books out there; within this, there has been a perpetual increase in fiction and non-fiction stories that give voices to sexual assault and abuse survivors, explorations into consent (or lack thereof) and books that give rise to complex female characters (as Maeve Wiley famously put it).
If you’re one of our fellow book lovers and you’re reading this, ET has curated a collection of book picks for your Summer reading list regarding these topics, each equally enthralling, powerful and thought-provoking in their own right. Prepare your bank account, be sure to check trigger warnings and happy reading.
MY DARK VANESSA – Kate Elizabeth Russell
When Kate Elizabeth Russell’s fiction novel, My Dark Vanessa hit shelves in early 2020, it was described as a book that analysed the effects of an “era that has revolutionised the way we think about sex and power”. In it, a woman reflects on her high school years and her first sexual experience, which occurred with her English teacher at 15 years old. This is instigated by a journalist covering her past teacher’s conviction of sexual abuse. The story is not for the faint-hearted: it grapples with the aftermath of retrospective sexual assault, negotiates if Vanessa engaged in willful consent with her teacher or had any agency in the matter and the disillusion of love. It also showcases the complex feelings, thoughts and actions of a sexual assault victim, including nostalgia, and how these can have damaging and detrimental effects in the years that follow. Check it out here.
LOVE & VIRTUE – Diana Reid
Love & Virtue is a fiction novel that follows a young student, Michaela, as she befriends the self-assured Eve in the adjacent room at a residential college. Excited at the prospects of being first years at a prestigious Sydney-based university, the novel centres around an event that happens during O Week. As the novel unravels, the girls are forced to grapple with modern college culture, what constitutes consent and power dynamics within relationships. It also forces the reader to re-evaluate the accepted norms of university life, sexuality and material wealth. Released in late 2021, Diana Reid’s groundbreaking, thoughtful and humorously sharp story was the recipient of multiple Australian literary awards – so make sure you check it out here or here!
MEN WHO HATE WOMEN – Laura Bates
Laura Bates’ nonfiction book is equal parts disturbing and eye-opening as it investigates a series of men’s groups imbued with misogyny and the impacts of this. Bates, founder of the global Everyday Sexism Project and a spokesperson for gender equality across businesses, schools and organisations, traces modern misogyny to extremist ideology, Men’s Rights Groups and the radicalisation of the internet and mainstream media, just to name a few. Going undercover online, conducting interviews and drawing parallels to terrorism, Bates’ work cracks open the brutal realities of the movement and the sexual, physical and emotional violence that characterises it. Grab your copy via this link.
THE GRACE YEAR – Kim Liggett
The Grace Year has been labelled as a mix of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and the post-modern classic, Lord of the Flies (super intriguing). The fiction novel centres around a dystopian, patriarchy-entrenched society where girls, on their sixteenth birthday, are banished into the woodlands to “purge” themselves of a dangerous “magic” said to distinctly affect men – the grace year. During their time in the forest, the women must survive the elements, avoid poachers and try not to kill each other. While Liggett attempts to metaphorically unpack the ways women are socialised to compete and are pitted against one another, she also positions men as the main perpetrators who use women for their own benefits and to feed their own egos. At the core, female sexuality is something that men attempt to control or take advantage of. If this sounds like your cup of tea, visit this link.
HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES – Carmen Maria Machado
A collection of short fictional stories written by a queer author, Her Body and Other Parties presents a series of accounts from women about womanhood and their relationships with other people in their lives. From a woman refusing to obey her husband’s orders to remove a ribbon tied around her neck to a woman contemplating her sexual experiences from the past, Machado’s story collection unpacks the sexual and physical violence society places on women’s bodies. In particular, the stories confront the ways women are robbed of their humanity, never good enough despite their efforts and continuously deal with shame and judgement for being sexual beings. As the title suggests, the female body is positioned as a “party”; something to be exploited, indulged in and sexualised. Piqued your interest? Follow the link to snag yourself a copy.
A LITTLE LIFE – Hanya Yanagihara
This now TikTok sensation is a fiction novel primarily focusing on Jude as he navigates his adult life constantly shadowed by childhood trauma, most notably sexual and psychological abuse at the hands of men. For the most part, we see an immensely tortured man struggle to enjoy his adulthood in the aftermath of his trauma, oscillating between feeling worthless, unattractive and undeserving of love, happiness and a contentment with oneself. Yanagihara’s novel reminds us that men are also vulnerable to sexual abuse and that trauma constantly follows its victims for years after, with devastating consequences. Make sure you have tissues nearby when you read this one – you’ll definitely need them. Purchase it here.
THE FARM – Joanne Ramos
Reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale due to its deep dive into reproductive ethics and the lack of control women have over their own bodies, The Farm follows a young immigrant woman as she joins the “Farm” – a facility where women are paid to carry the surrogate pregnancies of uber rich parents – to support her baby daughter. Now pregnant and unable to leave the Farm until she delivers the baby, Ramos’ novel confronts the ways women’s bodies are exploited, seen as expendable machinery for child-bearing and the class and racial biases that underpin Western cultures and society. It’s thoughtful about morality, moving and is totally worth the read. Pick it up here.
BLOOD WATER PAINT – Joy McCullough
Set in Renaissance Italy in the seventeenth century, Blood Water Paint is a fiction novel for all the history and art lovers out there. The story is loosely based on the life of Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi as she negotiates the predominantly male-dominated field of creating professional artworks and art education. The novel centres around Artemisia recounting a particularly traumatic sexual assault she experienced at age 17, and follows the rhetoric and harsh realisation that men and perpetuators were able to mistreat and abuse women with little to no consequence. What transpires is an inspiring and powerful account of a woman attempting to reclaim her voice, transgress past the legal barriers to obtain justice and speak out about her life-altering experiences. Even over 400 years later, the issues in McCullough’s novel are still just as prominent and visible by today’s standards. Visit the link to get yourself a copy.
EGGSHELL SKULL – Bri Lee
Last but certainly not least, Eggshell Skull is a memoir by Bri Lee upending Australia’s legal system as a law student and then judge’s associate of Queensland’s District Court. Throughout the heart-wrenching and courageous novel, Lee recounts the injustice towards women she witnessed during her time in the courtroom, and takes a plunge into what justice means to different women from different racial, financial and social backgrounds. Accumulating to Lee’s reckoning with her own past and childhood struggles, the memoir solidifies the hypocrisy of modern Australia and its legal doctrine – one that ultimately constantly lets women down and fails to offer robust change. Check it out it here.
