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  • Writer's picturemorgan cavanaugh

HIS FAVORITES.

Updated: Apr 20, 2019

"So corroboration, I understand, is needed. Corroboration is what you have asked for, though I imagine that each of his favorites must have her own version of Master, or Master Atkins, or M, the narrative shifting depending on the storyteller, the year, the season, the angle of light: Memory, as you may recall, is a revision of a revision of a revision, the fortieth draft, or the forty-first."

His Favorites by Kate Walbert did a fantastic job on speaking on the #metoo movement, which is a major movement that spread like wildfire over social media. It’s for victims of sexual abuse and sexual assault having a voice to speak out about their perpetrator and to be heard by others around them. What I enjoyed about this story in particular is that we are able to take the journey with the protagonist, Jo, as we see two major life events occur to her that are an effect of each other. This a short book broken into two sections, you could finish the book in approximately an hour or two especially since once you start to read you’re invested into the characters and want to see how their lives turn out. What I liked about the organizations of the chapters, is that we’re in the thoughts/story telling of Jo about how much has transpired in her life within the year. We’re taken from one event to the next, all mashing well that it wasn’t hard to get lost in the time sequence of the story. This to me would be a coming-of-age novel because of the fact we unfortunately had to see Jo grow up in a faster rate than most 15 year old girls in high school.

The timeline of this book, I’m guessing for Jo, all occurred within a year. The time in the book is approximately in 1978 which I was interested to see Walbert connect such a powerful movement for women, and men too, to a time where when women were sexually assaulted or abused that the first question they would be asked is ‘what were you wearing’ which we find Jo being asked by the dean of the school, O’Conell, on page 110. This isn’t the only disgusting insight we get on the men of Hawthorne, the boarding school in which Jo attends. The first is when the girls of the school have their underwear and bras raided by the boys dormitories and toss them in trees all over campus. I feel that if I were a teacher at this school, first of all this wouldn’t be okay. Because of the girls having to find their undergarments dispersed over the campus the young girls were excused of their tardiness of class to find their clothes. What type of school is this? Is no one reporting this to their parents and the parents reporting to the police? Why is this school still open, even though it’s ruled by an older white men who believe men can do no wrong and if something goes wrong it’s because of the woman.


What I was glad to see in the book that Jo does go about speaking up about her traumatic experience with Master Atkins to a detective, which I thought she was talking to a therapist due to how much detail she was giving. I would’ve like to see more interaction between Stephanie and Jo before Stephanie’s death just to see how close they were through Stephanie’s perspective as well. Since we’re only given a better insight about their relationship after she died. I felt bad for Jo, being 15 and having killed your best friend (on accident) and then being sexually assaulted by a teacher after just moving to a new school where your parents just dumped you off. And after reading I think that’s one of the main reasons behind Master Atkins taking a real liking to Jo. He knows that she’s a new girl in school and the reason as to why she’s at Hawthorne, which I found ironic how he tried connecting with her about telling him about his ‘dead cousin.’


This story did an amazing job on taking the reader on a journey of a victim of sexual assault/abuse but also what tends to happen when you speak up. We, the reader, are placed in Jo’s shoes as we see her lose her best friends, being left by her parents, sent to another school where she is then taken advantage by a teacher, what happens when she tries to bring it to the attention of the dean, having a connection with another victim of sexual assault/abuse, and then finally gaining the courage to speak to authorities and protect other girls who this could possibly happen to. Here’s a link to a 24/7 online hotline for victims of sexual assault/abuse.

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