Monday, August 28, 2017

Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E.K. Johnston

Okay, it has been a long time since I've completed one of these.  Life got busy in July and school was starting up in August.  Combine these two things and not much reading gets accomplished.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear is a title that has been on my radar for a long time.  I finally started it in July and just finished it this weekend.  Exit is the story of a girl entering her senior year of high school, and maybe more importantly for her, her senior year of cheerleading.  Just before the school year starts, Hermione Winters is drugged and raped on the last night of cheer camp.

Over the course of the novel we see her as she is dealing with the emotional, mental, and physical fallout that comes with such a traumatic event.  More importantly, we see the support that she receives from those around her, some more reluctantly than others.  While this book is centered around the tragic event of her rape, it is a book that ends with a hope for the future, a chance at not letting this horrible event define who Hermione is in the end.
 

From Amazon:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author E.K. Johnston comes a brave and unforgettable story that will inspire readers to rethink how we treat survivors.

Hermione Winters is captain of her cheerleading team, and in tiny Palermo Heights, this doesn’t mean what you think it means. At PHHS, the cheerleaders don't cheer for the sports teams; they are the sports team—the pride and joy of a small town. The team's summer training camp is Hermione's last and marks the beginning of the end of…she’s not sure what. She does know this season could make her a legend. But during a camp party, someone slips something in her drink. And it all goes black.

In every class, there's a star cheerleader and a pariah pregnant girl. They're never supposed to be the same person. Hermione struggles to regain the control she's always had and faces a wrenching decision about how to move on. The rape wasn't the beginning of Hermione Winter's story and she's not going to let it be the end. She won’t be anyone’s cautionary tale.


"This story of a cheerleader rising up after a traumatic event will give you Veronica Mars-level feels that will stay with you long after you finish."—Seventeen Magazine