Safe by Susan Shaw

Ali Mark
Mar 24, 2016
5 min read

Gut Instinct Rating - 4

Story Line - 5

Writing Style - 4

Characters - 3

Excitement Factor - 4

Believability for type and topics - 5

Similarity to other books - 4

Dust Jacket Art - 5

Title Relevance - 4

Goodreads users gave this book a 3.63. I think it was more deserving of a 4.22.

Published in 2007.

Pages: 168.

Number of books by author: 25.

Genre: YA Realistic Fiction.

It was a normal day, June 15th. But Caroline's door shut, and a horrible door opened for Tracy. The door of a car. And the next thing she knew, she was in the emergency room. Her life would forever be changed by that day. But with efforts from her friends, her dad, and her piano teacher, she thinks she'll make it back to school and resume a normal life.

You may like this book if you like the following sub-genres:

Sexual Assault
Recovery
Friendship
Music

Let me start by saying that if you've been assaulted, this book could be a replica of any one of our journals. My heart literally raced through the entire book because I was like, "YES, I GET IT, TRACY... I GET IT!" Had I known this book would have this effect on me, I wouldn't have started it tonight... it would've become a Sunday morning book that I could dwell on while the rain came down. It's that kind of book. That being said, I really wanted to give this a 5, but it just lacked a little too much. (Although, this book will forever be up there with Speak.)

The characters in this book were just so inconsistent and lacked any real growth. And maybe I'm expecting too much out of a 13-year-old girl, 'cause I surely wasn't recovering that quickly, that young. The first thing I noticed was that it was mum and pa. And those aren't traditional names for mom and dad here in the states..., so when I found out the author was actually from Pennsylvania, I was quickly curious about how this book was set in the states with a different vocabulary. So that was really frustrating... as little as it seems, you want the consistency of a novel to flow... from start to finish. Aside from this, Tracy was a great character. But it felt like the author knew how great she was and didn't put as much emphasis on the remaining characters. I have a huge question about why the mother had died. I didn't feel as if the story required her to be dead. And why was the death so far in the past? I feel like if you're going to bring up the death of character, it should be recent... or incredibly memorable. Tracy was only 3 when her mother died, so she doesn't remember much... but we are constantly reminded of her mother's death. So I felt like there was something unfinished there. I would've much rather had the mom alive -- or if death was necessary for the book, which the author obviously felt it was, why not have the death closer in time? After all, we're implying that a father can't possible know how to handle a sexual assault of his 13-year old daughter - that a mother's absence could potentially contribute to a lack of things. Yet, we turn around and the father is the highlight of this daughter's world. Which I also thought was strange. Not that he played such a large role, but the role he played didn't feel like a father who's daughter was just assaulted.

Maybe that makes less since to me, maybe it makes more... I'm not entirely sure given my history - but I felt that his role was just there by default, almost. The piano teacher... for christ's sakes! She was supposed to be the stand-in-mother. Every story has one when a parent is gone. There's always a secondary role model - a teacher, a coach, a neighbor. But the piano teacher's presence at the end - she just disappears! Where's the closure? Where's the congratulatory event? Just, poof... gone. The friends were all pretty well done. Caroline played a large role in the story, but I didn't feel she played a relevant role. That might be a curious statement, but I didn't feel like she did anything (other than exist as a friend, ie: a point of drama) that was super empowering or degrading. She just existed... and I wasn't really satisfied with that. So, clearly... characters in this book just weren't all there for me. I was left wanting more.

The unique thing about this book, as I've already compared it to Speak, is that we didn't witness the recovery. Which seems normal enough, but in books like these - in books where we witness so much of the grief, it's only satisfying to also receive the recovery end. I actually liked that this book left that out (and I also really wanted the recovery part in there, too) because we focused on the immediate moments after an assault and how one copes with their world after that moment. It had been a few months after the assault, and we were starting to see things shift that way, but I'm glad this book focused so much on the now, and not the then. Because it's not something we see often.

The writing style was really basic, but something about it makes your heart spin and your stomach fill with butterflies. Something about it was rushed, but relaxing. It was all the things you feel after an assault - the curiosity, the hatred of others, of yourself, the disappointment in not being able to protect yourself, in others not being there at that moment, the questions, the feelings... all these things are so perfectly illustrated in this book - and this paired with the uniqueness, it escalates this story simply by existing. I hate to call this book "exciting," because it's anything but an exciting subject matter, but the fact that I was so focused on this book tells me that the author did something right.

I didn't really care for the title - I think it goes back to the mother being dead and how the mother's death really impacts the story. Did I understand why it was chosen - sure. The mother died and it's brought up numerous times throughout the brief 170 pages... but, if I was the editor behind this book, it wouldn't have been my first choice for titles. I'm not sure what I would've chosen, honestly. Once a title is out there, sometimes it's hard to think of the book in any other way... which is typically why authors don't chose their own titles because they're too close to the story and they have a different idea than an editor... who reads (often without a title) and can create their own perspective of the book. I'm not sure which order things took place for this book, but Safe was just not what I would've titled it. (Although, it's a big part of why I chose the book.) The cover art was dead on. The hardback is a hideous pale green, and I'm still trying not to vomit over someone's decision to use this color since the dust jacket is black and orange... but I'll go with it since it's on the shelf.