What Happened That Night by Deanna Cameron

Thanks to Netgalley and Wattpad Books for a copy of What Happened That Night in exchange for an honest review.

What Happened That Night by Deanna Cameron

Genre: YA Mystery

Publisher: Wattpad books

Publication date: September 17, 2019

Blurb

Griffin Tomlin is dead. And Clara’s sister killed him . . .

Four months after the murder, the entire town of Shiloh is still in shock. For Clara Porterfield, the normal world has crumbled around her in a million chaotic pieces. Now Clara lives in a new reality, where her sister awaits trial for murder, her mother obsessively digs in a dead, frozen garden, and her father lives and breathes denial. At school, Clara is haunted by her classmates’ morbid curiosity—and all of the unspoken questions they won’t ask.

Depiction of sexual assault

First off, this book comes with a trigger warning. No, that’s not me adding a trigger warning to my review. The actual book has a preface by the author warning that it depicts sexual assault.

So while the blurb doesn’t directly state it, I don’t think it’s a spoiler to write that the “other story” referenced by the blurb is rape. It’s also easy to guess who was raped and who was the rapist. But be forewarned that the depiction of the rape is fairly detailed and graphic, and that’s not the only scene that contains graphic details of sexual assault.

There were things I liked and disliked about the book.

Sympathetic characters

I was sympathetic toward Clara. Not only is her sister in jail for murder, but she is estranged from Bex, her BFF, and her parents, who disagree over Emily’s guilt, constantly put Clara in the middle of their adult problems.

But the rape dominates her personality. Other than her theatrical abilities and her childhood crush on the late Griffin Tomlin, she’s not given a lot of development: the rape overshadows her. It’s hard to see who Clara is apart from it.

Certain supporting cast members were more vivid in my mind. Aniston is a classmate who wants to become a crime reporter. As you can imagine, she’s obsessed with Griffin’s murder. She talks a mile a minute, wears pink and only pink, and takes the school newspaper seriously–too seriously. She also wants to track down the killer of another teen girl because, you know, the police aren’t capable of making connections on their own. Even so, she’s immensely likable.

Kolby, Griffin’s best friend; Bex, Clara’s ex-best friend; Wilson Westbrooke, Emily’s loser ex-boyfriend. They all came alive for me. I only wish Clara was as vividly portrayed.

Before and After

The book alternates between the events leading up to Emily’s arrest and the events after her arrest. This is mostly effective, though the formatting of the book confused things a bit. (The chapter breaks happened midway through a page and the “after” chapters weren’t labelled like the “before” chapters were.)

For me, it’s obvious that we need to read both timelines. Unless we understand what happened at a certain party, we won’t really get the full horror of what Clara is dealing with. And it is horrible.

Fascinated by violence 

Cameron is good at showing how we, as a society, want killers, rapists, etc. to be the “other”: different from the rest of us and for that difference to be obvious. She shows how our collective fascination with violence and our “need” to know all the details of a crime can lead to secondary victims.

She’s also good at exploring the Porterfield family’s reactions to Emily’s arrest. Disbelief. Misplaced guilt. Shame and embarrassment. Other people’s reactions show up, too: fingers point at parents, questions are asked, all privacy ripped apart. The victim is placed on a pedestal; the killer is tried, convicted, and sentenced in the court of public opinion before a single word is spoken  in a courtroom.

A psychopath 

Unfortunately, Cameron falters a bit. Rather than make the guilty party a normal human, she makes him a psychopath. (This isn’t really a spoiler, as it’s obvious from Clara’s reactions and thoughts in the early “after” sections that she’s seen behind his good boy facade.)

The rape scene clearly shows this psychopathy. It’s graphic, as I’ve said, but it’s also on the melodramatic side. This cheapens it. It comes across as exploiting rape and Clara’s reaction for dramatic purposes, rather than truly exploring how she deals with it.

In Cameron’s defense, I doubt that was her intention. From her preface, it’s obvious that she’s concerned for sexual assault victims. Other things in the book point toward this, too. She’s obviously thought about this issue, but maybe not with as much nuance and depth as necessary.

Final thoughts

The book kept me reading. While the writing might not have been as strong as it could’ve been, there were some lovely passages. For a debut novel, it’s good. This young writer shows promise.

Thanks again to Netgalley and Wattpad for a copy of What Happened that Night in exchange for an honest review.