You Ruined It

Starred review from May 1, 2022

Gr 4-8-In her new book, Higginbotham explores the confusion and pain of incest and sexual assault. Using collage and handwriting text in a journal format, Higginbotham shares the experience of Dawn, an 11-year-old who is sexually assaulted by her favorite cousin: the one who took her to the creek during the summer and who she loved spending time with. The text focuses on Dawn's feelings and emotions after the assault. It sensitively examines the complicated layers of trauma for Dawn, her mother, and Dawn's older sibling, Billie. Dawn struggles with still loving her cousin and wondering if the abuse was her fault. Dawn's mom and Billie believe Dawn, but have reactions very different from her. Her mother takes a self-defense course and Billie wants to beat up their cousin. Dawn is struggling with trying to trust anyone again and not wanting to see someone she loved dearly get hurt. The use of collage and handwriting brings intimacy to Dawn's experiences and captures the messiness and complexities of the situation. In addition, Higginbotham takes time to frontload the narrative with details to support readers and adds additional resources and other supports at the end of the text. VERDICT Higginbotham approaches a difficult topic with sensitivity and nuance; an excellent, insightful resource for young people who have been through abuse, as well as friends of young people who have been sexually assaulted.-Rebekah J. Buchanan

Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2022
Dawn processes the consequences of telling her mother and her sibling about what her older cousin did to her. Her mother is reluctant to tell relatives, including Dawn's grandmother and absent father, about the rape, but she and Dawn's sibling, Billie, support her, and the family attends self-defense lessons. Billie feels greater anger and need for revenge than Dawn, who misses bygone days outdoors with her 22-year-old cousin. Handwritten text on lined paper evokes the intimate feeling of a diary. The collage art conveys Dawn's varying emotional state as she grapples with the aftermath of the assault. Words and images are placed next to or inside circular shapes produced by spirographs to indicate feelings and experiences she asserts or rejects, demonstrating a therapeutic art exercise she learns about later in the story ("what i want goes inside the circle. what i don't want stays out"). Crossed-out text, including raped and we, reflects her efforts to reckon with what happened and who was responsible. Dawn is gentle on herself and, by extension, on readers who may have been in similar situations. Her acts of self-care, from reclaiming old favorite settings to creating art, demonstrate practical means of healing. Dawn and her family are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.) This empowering lesson about speaking up and trusting oneself in the wake of trauma deserves to be read widely. (questions for reflection; author's notes about incest, self-defense, and spirographs; resources for further learning) (Fiction. 8-12)

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