Quiet No More

by Nikki Barthelmess

Overview

After surviving sexual assault by her father and six months in foster care, college freshman Victoria Parker is trying to move on with her life. She’s focusing on the positives—attending college, living on her own, repairing old relationships and making new ones, and getting involved with an abuse survivors' activist group on campus. But everything’s thrown into disarray when a strange woman shows up, claiming to be Victoria’s aunt and asking Victoria to lie about what happened to her.


With her father’s sentencing in a few months, Victoria’s nervous about having to share the truth of what happened with a judge. She’s not even sure if she has the strength to go through with it. But when her fellow club members begin pressuring her to speak out, Victoria has to decide how to share her story while remaining true to herself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635830637
Publisher:	North Star Editions
Publication date:	10/13/2020
Series:	The Quiet You Carry , #2
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Nikki Barthelmess is a journalist published everywhere from lifestyle blogs to survivalist magazines. She entered foster care in Nevada at twelve, and spent the next six years living in six different towns. During this time, Nikki found solace in books, her journal, and the teachers who encouraged her as a writer. She graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Nevada, Reno. Nikki lives in Los Angeles with her husband and her pride-and-joy Corgi pup. She is the author of The Quiet You Carry, Quiet No More, and Everything Within and In Between.

Editorial Reviews

"A sensitive and satisfying story of surviving sexual abuse."—Kirkus Reviews

"This novel adeptly explores rape culture and the rights of survivors. It, along with book one, is recommended for all YA collections."—School Library Journal

"A deftly crafted and compelling sequel."—Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher

08/07/2020

Gr 9 Up—This is the continuing story of Victoria Parker from The Quiet You Carry, in the aftermath of the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of her father, who is in jail and awaiting sentencing. Victoria is now living on her own and is a community college student. She is learning how to make new friends, which largely happens when she joins the student group, Students Against Sexual Assault and Harassment. Her new friends are outspoken and one even has a blog, "Patriarchy Pounder," which operates like a whisper network, warning people of sexual predators. Her father and his estranged sister plead with Victoria, asking that she write a mild victim impact statement for the judge. Victoria is torn. Her supportive community wants to help her but Victoria needs to find her own voice. Her situation becomes more complicated as her past gets exposed online. The main characters are white. VERDICT This novel adeptly explores rape culture and the rights of survivors. It, along with book one, is recommended for all YA collections.—Lisa Gieskes, Richland County P.L., Columbia, SC

School Library Journal

2020-08-12
The sequel to The Quiet You Carry (2019) explores what happens to now–college freshman Victoria after she told the truth about her father’s sexual abuse.

Victoria’s father is in jail awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty, and she has aged out of foster care, tentatively reconnected with her stepmother and stepsister, gotten her own apartment, and enrolled in community college. There, Victoria joins Students Against Sexual Assault and Harassment and begins to make new friends. Disturbing revelations and a request from an aunt she never previously knew existed force Victoria to agonize anew over her victim impact statement. Her many drafts reveal how challenging this statement is for her to write. Victoria faces other dilemmas as well. Is she still in love with her high school boyfriend? What should SASAH do about the student government leader who wants to shut them down? This volume stands on its own, and Victoria’s first-person voice remains as strong and appealing as it was in the previous book. Occasionally the characters’ dialogue can feel stilted as they talk about sexual assault statistics and the emotional impact of abuse. But the plot moves quickly—and believably—as Victoria sorts through her options and acts with the help of friends old and new. Except for two relatively prominent secondary characters, all characters are White.

A sensitive and satisfying story of surviving sexual abuse. (resources) (Fiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews