Against My Will
By Robyn Heirtzler
Reviewed by Holly Jones
On 6/12/2007
CFI, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc., 2006 Paperback:
252 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-55517-987-8
ISBN-10: 1-55517-987-8 Price: $15.99
“One rainy morning. One selfish man. One evil act. In just a few terrifying moments, Carina’s life changed forever.”
“A must-read for family and friends of rape victims” (quotes from the back cover)
Against My Will by Robyn Heirtzler is the fictional account of a college girl, Carina, who is forced into a stranger’s car while jogging, then taken up on a mountain and raped. She survives, makes her way back down the mountain and calls her boyfriend. An emotional wreck, Carina spends the next months holed up in her boyfriend’s apartment. Just when she starts taking the first tentative steps toward healing, Carina finds out she is pregnant. She knows that the rapist is the father, since this has been her one and only sexual encounter.
Although it reads like a novel, this book has a “how-to” feel, and perhaps could be subtitled: “a guide for understanding what a rape victim may experience.” Carina’s post-rape experience is related in a blow-by-blow manner: the hospital after the rape, the interactions with police and legal counsel, the rape trial, the prenatal care and deliberations about what to do with the baby.
Carina is not Mormon or especially religious, but by the end of the novel she and her boyfriend have become interested in listening to the LDS missionaries at some point in the future. Neither the missionaries nor their message get any airtime – Carina and her boyfriend are simply too emotionally occupied with the pregnancy and rape trial to pursue their interest.
The dedication page and the conclusion prominently mention the statistic that “one in six women has been the victim of some form of sexual abuse.” Without any further explanation, the suggestion seems to be that one in six women experience something like what Carina experienced. Before I’d recommend this book to an inexperienced teenager, I would want to verbally clarify to her or him that the spectrum of sexual abuse includes, but is not limited to, violent rape of a stranger.
This book is well-done; an eye-opening account of what recovering from sexual brutality would entail. The storyline flows well and holds interest. Heirtzler strikes an honest and straightforward tone, not sensationalistic, self-aware, or overly emotional. In a stroke of genius, Heirtzler balances the evil of the rapist with the goodness of Carina’s boyfriend, deftly imprinting a hopeful flavor on a book about a grim subject. I would highly recommend this book for family and friends of rape victims.