Infandous—Elana K. Arnold

CW: Mentions of incest and rape

Yikes. Only six chapters in, and I was noticing a theme and had an idea of where things were headed. Good thing I checked out some reviews (should've done it earlier, to be honest, but it was on a list from a book-ish place I usually can trust) and found out about the "twist." Definitely don't need any more books about incest, accidental, rape, or otherwise. (See my review of the terrible The Roanoke Girls.) The writing is great, but I just can't do that again/anymore.

Essentially, the book centers around teenager Sephora, the daughter of a gorgeous former model single mother, who has never revealed who Sephora's dad is. Sephora seems obsessed with fairy tales and the prevalence of sexual assault in so many of the original stories. I stopped reading at about the point where she had shared, I think two fairy tales (the crux that was clearly meant to be conveyed in both being the sexual assault) and she has just introduced an older male character—like, twice her age older—who she has a quick affair with during the summer. She begins talking about their relationship, and the wording of their encounter makes it seem as though it was not exactly a thing that she was into. If you have already guessed the twist, it's that the stranger that she meets and sleeps with ends up being her dad.

Though I didn't finish this book, I did want to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about the concept of a trigger warning/content warnings attached to books. Now, granted, the situation presented in Infandous—at least as far as I read—is not anywhere near the level of fucked up that was portrayed in The Roanoke Girls. And again, unlike The Roanoke Girls, I don't think that Arnold wrote this story with the purpose of merely being scandalous for scandal's sake. It seems like she authentically wanted to tell a story that questions the nature of relationships.

Also, while we're here. I keep seeing books with content similar to this—or hearing about them, see: any and all of the (rightful) drama surrounding recent new release My Absolute Darling. And people who are reviewing the books will often talk about how the book was "difficult but necessary," or "uncomfortable but beautiful" or any similar banal drivel. I think that's a very easy way to respond to a subject matter that you've probably never had to encounter. I don't think fictional stories, mostly written by men (with exceptions, this being one of them) about women being abused by family members are stories that need to be told. I think we already have enough of them, to be perfectly honest. And if there are stories there that need to be told—which I am open to changing my mind about—they should be written by people who are not telling the story to merely be exploitative or edgy or sensational. V.C. Andrews has done that already. They should instead be written by people who have lived that experience or who are hoping to incite a particular conversation that is relevant to our larger societal discourse.

BUT, with all that said—I REALLY think books with content like this should come with some sort of warning. We have ratings for movies and video games, and yet people don't claim that those ratings "spoil" any of the story. (Or maybe they do, but I haven't heard that inane argument.) And yet for some reason, in both theatre and books, there seems to be a resistance to help readers avoid potentially triggering and damaging content because it would somehow spoil the story for other readers who aren't going to be triggered. Or it's believed that the warning is a way for special snowflakes to avoid content that they don't want to confront.

I'm not the first person, nor the most eloquent, to address the latter bullshit argument. What I will do is speak from my own experience. Which is that triggering content will not turn me away necessarily, but it WILL prepare me for what I am about to experience. Oftentimes for my own self, the thing that is triggering is not necessarily the content itself, though that is sometimes the case. What is more often true is that the trigger comes in when it is completely unexpected. For example, with this book. If I'd made it to the big reveal, I can pretty much guarantee that I would have had a full-on panic attack. I've been there before with media that has similar content. I think people who believe that trigger warnings are unnecessary are incredibly lucky to not have any triggering experiences AND also people lacking in some genuine empathy. The experience of having a panic attack, and especially one in a public place if you are watching a show or reading a book out in the world, is physically and emotionally exhausting and, frankly, embarrassing.

So, once again, I strongly advocate for, if not a clear step in the direction of warnings, at least a conversation about the best way to convey this information to consumers of media in a way that can help them protect themselves from harm.