Image source: photo by the artist
Reading Reflection written July 2023
It’s difficult to not be impacted by the pending metaphors associated with the fiery hand print slapped across Jacquelyn’s mouth on her otherwise greyscale book cover. The obvious connection is to blood, perhaps it’s referencing her unspeakable wounds. After reading, I have a newfound appreciation for the chosen saturation of this cadmium. This hand is not blood-red, it’s more like that of a fire engine truck (which my two and a half year old son is obsessed with at the moment, maybe that’s also where this analogy materialised). A fire engine is an emergency vehicle, a person’s mouth can be used for many things but mostly it’s utility is for survival through communication and nourishment. This cover represents Jacquelyn’s audience, those who should race to buy this book. It’s for people who need help, help with the kind of pain and debilitating symptoms post rape and sexual assault. The close up portrait of a woman’s face with this ignited handprint is both piercing and confronting, it is not lost on me that the words sexual assault survivor/ rape are absent; there’s something I like about this. Is it because I find it distressing to feel the need to read this in and of itself? This may be one of the reasons. The shame and embarrasment felt after being raped is so deafening and almost impossible to mute, it emerges as the background soundtrack to a new-post-rape-life. If I were to read this book in public I’d imagine I might fold it in such a way that so no one could read the title or see the cover image; but then again I wouldn’t know this for sure as this book never left my bedside. I needed to be physically comfortable reading this as its ability to pull at my emotional heart-strings was powerful. Before reading this I felt daunted by the mere thought of reading a book in the vicinity of this subject matter but Jacuquelyn doesn’t dwell on the details of the event when she was raped (this was always a looming-fear of mine that as I was running/ avoiding at all costs re-living/ replaying images of the events where I was raped that I couldn’t bare to read about someone else's).
An adjective for Jaquelyn’s book is uplifting. The affirmations she shares reminds me of the mental-tools given to prepare for childbirth/labour. There’s a beautiful nature-driven-awareness that I have come to appreciate found when reading Indigenous authors in particular. Connections with Jacquelyn’s Shoshone Native American culture are generously peppered throughout this psychologically and spiritually-nutritional smorgasbord.
Read this book when you are mentally, emotionally and spiritually in need of help. Read again and again to accept practical utensils to heal and improve.