Winnie M. Li

If I could only write one sentence about this book it would be: Dark Chapter is a disturbing and compelling book but quite simply STUNNING! I could no more tear my eyes from the page than I could forget to breathe. As difficult as it was to read at times, it was quite impossible to stop reading.

Vivian has come to Belfast to see the sights, but gets more than she bargained for when she is raped; shocked and stunned, she reports the crime but as much courage as that took, she needs to call on show more greater strength to see it through. Seeing the crime from both sides is shocking and surprising and I can't even begin to imagine what Winnie M Li has been through in order to call upon such emotions.

The Prologue of Dark Chapter sets the pace, where I felt sick with fear and my heart raced with the increasing tension as we hurtled towards the inevitable conclusion. Although there are no chapters, which usually would annoy me, but in this case I barely blinked, I raced through the 5 parts of the book: part 1 the time leading up to the event, part 2 the aftermath, part 3 the arrest of Johnny, part 4 the trial and part 5 new beginnings. What I found amazing, was that I didn't feel sorry for Vivian, I felt every emotion with her. I felt as if the crime had been committed against my very own person and I was as MAD as hell.

Dark Chapter deserves every accolade that is coming its way, and I'm sure there will be many. To write a book filled with such emotion showing both sides of a story is nothing short of exceptional. As such abuse seems to be in the news recently, this is a book that is both very current and also very timeless. Seeing the story from both sides is both mesmerising and jawdropping, making Dark Chapter an absolutely stunning work of fiction, with a disturbing ring of truth.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion. show less

Three siblings, raised together in an Asian-American part of California, have very little to do with one another now that they are all adults with their own families. They're living in Boston, Chicago and London, and outside of an occasional bit of news relayed by their parents, they barely keep in touch. But now their mother has had a medical emergency, she's decided that not only must they come visit her at the same time, they need to drive there together and visit the Grand Canyon, a show more place she had intended them to visit together as a family when they were all young, but an event short-circuited that trip. So, reluctantly, Alex, Bonnie and Kevin meet up in Chicago and begin a road trip down Route 66 to see their parents. These aren't siblings who were best friends growing up, and resentments between Alex and Kevin remain and Bonnie is the constant peace-maker and organizer as the oldest sibling. But behind the tensions are the event that stopped their family road trip to the Grand Canyon all those years ago and it's in figuring out together what happened that will bring them together.

So a story about adult siblings isn't a fresh thing, nor is the idea of a road trip, but Li takes these standard elements and creates something worthwhile. Sure, it's about all the usual resentments between siblings and about having to face racism, whether overt or subtle, as a part of being Chinese American, about what it's like to be raised by immigrants, about how the American dream plays out very differently for each of the siblings. But there's real emotions between them and how the pivotal incident is handled is very well done. Here, no one is hiding any information from the reader, but the story needs all three of them to piece together why their parents reacted as they did. I enjoyed spending time with the Chu siblings. show less

Sarah is teaching screenwriting at a local college when she is contacted by a young and famous journalist making a name for himself revealing the bad behavior of powerful men. She's reluctant to speak with him, but when she does she finds herself telling her story. After graduating from Columbia, she finds a job as an intern at a small production company and, by making herself indispensable, works her way up to associate producer. During one exiting meeting during the Cannes Film Festival, show more the production company joins with a British billionaire, who gives them the money and connections to dramatically scale up their company. Before long, Sarah's in charge of producing a movie in LA and finding out that being good at her job is no protection, for herself or others.

I read Winnie M. Li's debut novel, which was based on her own experiences and while I didn't think that the book was entirely successful, it was brave and it left me with no doubt in my mind that Li wrote well and that she was willing to take risks in her writing. I was excited to see that she'd written [Complicit] and I was eager to see what she was going to do with the #MeToo theme. At first, I thought she was going to closely follow the story of one woman's experience reported in Ronan Farrow's book, especially given how the journalist was a stand-in for Farrow, but Li quickly went off into a different direction, one that allowed her to create a much more nuanced story. Once again, Li was brave in her choices and the resulting story was complex and thought-provoking. She also went into detail about what it takes to get a movie from an initial screenplay to the finished product, which was fascinating. I was impressed with this novel and I'm excited to see what Li writes next. show less

Although a work of fiction, Dark Chapter by Winnie M. Li closely mirrors her own experience when she was raped while on a walk in a park near Belfast, Ireland. This story follows an American woman of Asian descent as she too is raped in Belfast. We work through all levels and all stages of the aftermath of this crime, the police interviews, medical examinations, the procedures to guard against AIDs and tests for infections, the months and years that it takes for the crime to not control all show more aspects of her life. The story totally overwhelms and captures the readers attention, but the author doesn’t stop there. She also attempts to get inside the mind of the rapist, a young psychologically damaged Irish traveller who learned his violent ways from his abusive father.

I was totally mesmerized by this book finding it both informative and riveting. Reading of Vivian Tan, a twenty-nine year old, highly educated, professional woman being accosted by a fifteen year old, illiterate teenager and having this encounter shape their lives so definitively was a compelling and harrowing experience.

I sincerely hope that the writing of Dark Chapter was a healing process for the author. I found this to be a courageous exploration of both the victim and the perpetrator's mindset before, during and after the rape. Dark Chapter was an excellent read, both suspenseful and full of tension. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to have a deeper understanding of the effects that this crime has on it’s victims. show less