Review: Know My Name (by Chanel Miller)

My Rating: 4 stars

This poignant and unforgettable memoir was difficult to read at times, but well worth the time spent.  I listened to the audiobook version where Chanel Miller recounts her harrowing experience of sexual assault in her own voice, which made this an especially powerful read.  In narrating her story, Chanel is candid about what she went through, laying everything out in explicit, gut-wrenching detail: the physical, mental, and emotional toll that the assault and subsequent years-long trial had on her; the excruciating pain of having to watch as the defense dragged her own and her beloved sisters’ reputations through the mud; the callous disregard for basic human decency; the attempts to reframe the narrative through victim-shaming and blaming, and worst of all, the injustice of a lenient sentence handed down by a judge sympathetic to the perpetrator. 

Reading Chanel’s memoir reinforced for me how broken our criminal justice system truly is – I mean, it is run by humans after all.  Sadly, one of my biggest takeaways from reading about Chanel’s experience is the painful realization of how cruel the system can be and it’s no wonder why so many victims would choose to suffer in the shadows rather than step into the light. It takes an immense amount of courage to face the criticisms, scrutiny, and judgement of strangers and acquaintances alike, especially with emotions running high on all sides.  What saddened and angered me the most was seeing how the ordeal not only upended Chanel’s life, but also the lives of her family members – for example, having to rearrange school and work schedules in order to accommodate constantly changing court dates, or having to drop everything and show up to court at a moment’s notice or lose the opportunity to make your voice heard.  In essence, the victim’s life is, at best, negatively impacted or at worst, irrevocably destroyed – with these types of odds, who would want to risk it?   I applaud Chanel’s strength and courage in not only standing up for herself (against an unfair and unjust system, no less), but also inspiring so many others to do the same.

This memoir is definitely a must-read in any format, but I would of course recommend listening to the audiobook version for an especially powerful experience.