The Year After by Ashley Warner

Release Date: 11/20/13

Buy the Book: Amazon

 My Rating: 5/5

About this Memoir:

With unflinching honesty and unsinkable spirit, The Year After offers a rare and intimate portrait of trauma. Inspired by original journal entries, the daily challenges of recovery from rape at the restless age of 24 are artfully interwoven with reflections from early childhood and twenty years beyond in the search for understanding so familiar to those who have wrestled with life-changing upheaval. Now a psychoanalyst, Warner subtly brings a forward-looking perspective to the narrative while remaining true to the arduous journey through emotional volatility, interpersonal conflict, and the tasks of criminal prosecution after the rapist is identified in a lineup. The result is an empowering memoir about the courage to heal and the promise of peace.

My Review:

It  took me a few days after reading this before I could write this review. In my opinion, that's the sign of something truly amazing-- when you have to take time to process it. It's almost like, in reading something like this, your life will never be the same. 

Ashley Warner has done something that took so much bravery, I can't even imagine. She's taken her experience, something so terrible, vile, and a million other words such as those, and documented it and turned it into this, the true 'Year After' You follow her through that first year with, as the synopsis says, unflinching honesty. You see as she does her best to move on just going through the motions, finding herself angry at every person but the one who did that most horrible thing to her. Yet, you watch her ups and her downs, and ultimately her triumphs. I cannot praise this memoir enough, one of the best I've read in a long while. Sometimes there's those books that make you feel like there aren't enough "stars" in your rating system to describe how beautiful they are. Mrs. Warner has inspired me so much by writing this, sharing her story. This will stay with me for a long while. I highly recommend, walking in Ashley's shoes by reading this has certainly given me a new outlook on a lot of things. 

*I received this book in exchange for an honest review from the author. This, however, in no way affected my thoughts expressed in this review.*