Rape is not a subject to be treated lightly, and certainly not something to be used in the way it?s used here [the coming he was reviewing at the time]. Rape is often employed by writers, not because they have a story they want to tell about rape, but because rape is something that ?happens to women.? Not in the real world sense, of course, rape is something that can and does happen to people from all genders, ages, and walks of life. But in the hands of a lesser-skilled writer, rape is generally employed as a ?thing that happens to women.? And it is no less evident than in this book.
This story is not about Sue Dibny?s rape. Sue is essentially a prop, and we only see the rape in how it affects everybody else. The rape is used only as a catalyst for other characters. We don?t know how she recovers from the incident. Where is HER story? For that matter, WHY did this have to be a rape? It could have been anything else. A kidnapping. An attempted murder. Instead, it goes for rape for two reasons: One, the assumption that rape is something that ?happens to women,? and two, to give the veneer that this is a ?mature? story, edgy and more adult. But the story is not handled in an adult way. A mature story would?ve focused on the rape itself and show how it affected Sue as a character. Instead, it?s nothing more than a red herring, added for shock value. You can?t just throw adult elements into the story and ignore them. You have to deal with the consequences of it.
Oh, and by the way, this story has about four or five narrators sprinkled throughout the book. None of them are women. Just saying.
