Consent cover

Consent

by Vanessa Springora

"A French memoir in the age of #metoo. A literary sensation, Vanessa Springora's Consent weaves her personal narrative of a relationship during her childhood with a famous, much older writer into a stunning and forceful indictment of the literary world that allowed sexual abuse of minors to occur unchecked"-- Thirty years ago, Springora was the teenage muse of one of the France's most celebrated writers. Here she offers her perspective of their relationship: a universal #MeToo story of power, manipulation, trauma, recovery, and resiliency that exposes the hypocrisy of a culture that has allowed the sexual abuse of minors to occur unchecked. Her memoir lays bare the cultural attitudes and circumstances that made it possible for a thirteen-year-old girl to become involved with a fifty-year-old man, and reflects on the ways in which this disturbing relationship changed and affected her as she grew older.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?