Exit, Pursued By A Bear

Exit, Pursued By A Bear

YA fiction
"'I need you to say it, Polly,' I whisper. It will be real as
soon as she does, but there's no one better at pulling off Band-Aids
than Polly Olivier.
'They found you in the lake,' she says, her shining eyes inches
from mine. 'Amy did, I mean, when you weren't at the cabin when she
got back. She was frantic. You were still in your dress, but your
underwear was gone, and you were up to your waist in water, lying on
the rocks."
Hermione, narrator of E. K. Johnston's Exit, Pursued By A Bear,
is a high school senior who lives for cheerleading. She's co captain
of her squad, and her teammates are her besties.
Hermione's last cheer camp right before school starts will be
her best one. It's living up to her expectations until the night of a
dance where she's handed a drugged drink and wakes up in a hospital:
raped, unable to remember what happened, and possibly pregnant.
Rumors about her fly around the Internet. Not everyone believes it
was nonconsensual. Her parents and friends aren't sure how to treat
her. Pregnancy confirmation requires a difficult decision.
Like Hermione, I lost my virginity to rape when I was much
younger. People who minimize this trauma, as the father of a rapist
who described his son's reprehensible act as "twenty minutes of
action" change public perceptions in a very harmful way. Rape has
been shown to cause more PTSD than military services. It took me
decades to get over the damage. Some people never do.
Sadly we live in a society where too many girls and women are
sexually assaulted. Sensitively and perceptively written, Exit,
Pursued By A Bear is a book that should be widely read.
On a personal note, as of yesterday I have been accepted into the
University of Maine's Higher Education master's program. In my entire
life the only other events that have left me as full of joy and terror
at the same time have involved childbirth.
A great big shout out goes out to the folks who believe in my
potential, who encouraged me not to give up, and who will be with me
every step of the way in the challenging path that has just opened up.
I'm still having a hard time realing that this is actually happening.
jules hathaway



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