Going UnderPublication date: March 14th 2013 by Penny Press
Rating: ★★★★★
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Brooke Wright has only two goals her senior year at Charity Run High School: stay out of trouble and learn to forgive herself for the past. Forgiveness proves elusive, and trouble finds her anyway when she discovers a secret club at school connected to the death of her best friend. She learns that swim team members participate in a “Fantasy Slut League,” scoring points for their sexual acts with unsuspecting girls.
Brooke, wracked with guilt over her friend’s death, decides to infiltrate the league by becoming one of the “unsuspecting girls,” and exact revenge on the boys who stole away her best friend. An unexpected romance complicates her plans, and her dogged pursuit of justice turns her reckless as she underestimates just how far the boys will go to keep their sex club a secret.
(This is a New Adult fiction book with mature themes. It contains graphic sex and language and a description of sexual violence.)
Before I begin, trigger warning: sexual assault. This book contains scenes of sexual assault against women told from the point of view of the victims and it might be a trigger for some readers. If you still decide to read Going Under, proceed with caution.
Brooke is trying to come to terms with her best friend, Beth, committing suicide, feeling like her actions towards her when she was alive were part of the reason that lead her to take her own life. When her mother moves away she's presented with the opportunity to go live with her dad and attend Beth's high school, finding out that the empty school halls hold more secrets connected to her friend's death and what happened to her beforehand than she first thought.
But the deeper Brooke digs, the worse things get.
She finds out about that the swim team's "Fantasy Slut League" is as sickening as it sounds, and that some of the boys participating on it are willing to go to any lengths to get what they want and score more points for themselves.
And that can only mean that what happened to Beth also happened to other girls.
Since Beth is not there to forgive her for her mistakes, Brooke is determined to make those who made her best friend suffer pay and punish herself all in one go. And maybe, just maybe, after she gets what she thinks she deserves for not being a good friend, she'll finally stop feeling guilty about the part she played in her Beth's suicide.
I don't need to tell you that what happens in Going Under is horrid and much more common than anyone thinks. Parts of the story will make you feel sick while other will give you such a strong sense of hope and pride for how some of the character's deal with the trauma they went through.
That was one of the most amazing aspects of the book for me, actually. That the author made sure to include different reactions and responses to being sexual assaulted, showing that everyone deals with these types of situations differently. And also that some people choose not to report the crime for being afraid of what people will think of them.
Brooke was... I found her to be incredibly brave, but also incredibly stupid. She made some really poor decision throughout the story that, at the same time made her real, made her really hard to like. She was an amazingly written character, though, as were all of the people mentioned in the books. I got lost in this story, in these character's lives and what they went through, and I felt for each and everyone of them.
Going Under was a fabulous book about having something taken from you but still having the strength to speak up for yourself. It's about finding love, forgiveness, and the willing to live after tragedy strikes. It will torn your heart apart, put it back together, and make sure you never forget or regret reading about Brooke and Beth's story.
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