Lucky Journal Week 1

Pages 1-35

The book starts out with Alice Sebold walking home one night when she is brutally attacked and raped. At the beginning her attacker tells her to stop fighting or else he will kill her, but she continues to try and fight back. He then pulls out a knife but she somehow manages to kick it out of his hand, which may have been the key factor in her survival. After Alice realizes that she can't physically keep up with her attacker she decides to go along with it to save her life. An example of this is when she says,"So he wouldn't hurt me more, I needed to say the right thing." Finally after a very difficult 20 minutes the attacker tells her that they are done and that she can leave, but not before making her give him a kiss goodbye.

As she begins to walk back to her dorm she hears people whispering about her appearance. She is covered in blood, bruised in multiple areas and her hair is torn out in certain spots.

She finally reaches her dorm where her Resident Security Assistant realizes that something has happened to her. All that she manages to say to him is that she is sorry, she left her i.d at home and would like to get into her room and go to bed. He finally allows her to go to her room.

Alice knocks on her dorm door but receives no response, because all of her belongings were left at the park she had no key. She goes to another friends dorm but as the girl opens the door she passes out and falls back asleep. Alice now has no one to turn to but her R.S.A. So she heads down stairs and says,"I was raped in the park, will you call the Police?"

Immediately Alice is rushed to the hospital where they collect the evidence for what the doctors refer to as a standard rape kit. At this time her two best Friends Tree and Mary Alice arrive at the hospital. After they finishes collecting the evidence on Alice's body she is driven to the police station.

When she arrives at the station Alice tells a young man with a type writer her story. She is then asked to try to identify her killer by looking through mounds of books filled with mug shots. Unfortunately Alice does not find him and is then sent home.

after finally gaining the courage Alice calls her mom and tells her what happened and that she would like her mom to come pick her up. After about thirty minutes Alice's mom comes and picks her up from school and drives Alice home.


Through out reading this section I was extremely suprised by the amount of detail the author put into the book. I could visualize every second of the rape, whether I wanted to or not. The only way I can phrase my reaction is schocked. I was filled with remorse for the author because it shows you just how much she went through. I think the fact that the rapping was told with such graffic detail will really help me to understand her recovery process.