Rape Girl

 Book 2 of my 2026 Reading Challenge

read January 1

Rape Girl by Alina Klein

published 2012

5 stars

This was a thin but powerful book.  If I continued reflecting there are some things I could nitpick but I chose 5 stars because of the strong, unfortunately realistic messaging and how absorbed I was reading it in one sitting.  I'm also glad that this was a book purchased for me for Christmas and the author mentioned portions of the proceeds will go to Pandora's Project and RAINN.

Although I'm selfishly glad it ended when it did, having the timeframe be so short and not going to trial did take away some more potential emotional moments.

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Ways This Book Met my 2026 Reading Goals:

- 2nd book read in 2026 (my goal is 100)

- A book I received for Christmas 2025 (my goal is to read all my Christmas 2025 books by the end of 2026)

- Title starting with 'R' (I'm doing an A-Z title challenge)

The Worst Noel: Hellish Holiday Tales

 Book 1 of my 2026 Reading Challenge

read from December 31 - January 1

The Worst Noel: Hellish Holiday Tales

published 2005

1 star

What I Expected: stories about awful Christmases.  Based on my recognition with the authors I didn't expect horror but using "hellish" to describe them does imply a certain life/death stake or something completely chaotic.

What I Got: whiny stories.  It's not my place to say how someone should process an experience but from an outsider's view, most of these situations seem inconvenient or mildly uncomfortable at best.

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The Worst Noel is a collection of holiday stories by multiple authors.  I picked it up at a used book sale last fall and saved it for my family to give to me for Christmas.  I thought it was still fitting for the season and decided it would be the first one of my new books I'd read this year.  That made it even more of a bummer that this book was pretty awful.

I'm unclear on if these are true stories the authors have experienced.  If they are, there was an "I guess you had to be there" vibe since most were presented with little to no context.  If they're not, I'm surprised this is the best they could invent.

Either way, it didn't work for me.

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Ways This Book Met my 2026 Reading Goals:

- 1st book read in 2026 (my goal is 100)

- A book I received for Christmas 2025 (my goal is to read all my Christmas 2025 books by the end of 2026)

- A book I own that is leaving my house for a new reader to find (my goal is to declutter and make progress on whittling down my shelves/boxes of books in my house)