Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for a copy of "The Damages" in exchange for my honest opinion.

This story takes place is two separate time periods. One is in 2020 and the backstory happened in 1998. Back in January 1998 Megan Main went missing from her dorm room during a massive winter ice storm. Her dorm was in Alice Cole Hall and since that was the only place on campus that had power, it was party central there.

Rosalind Fisher was her roommate and she's a character that is very hard to like. She didn't like Megan because she wasn't one of the popular girls. She had this toxic need to align herself with the most popular crowd at Regis University. She basically ignores her roommate/buddy and on the night of her disappearance she locks her out of their room because she's brought a guy over. Once it becomes clear that Megan is missing she comes up with an elaborate lie of Megan probably leaving and going to stay with an Aunt in Toronto. She has no idea when Megan left or if she even left. She has trouble keeping her lies straight.

What happened to Megan forms the second half of the book. Though most of it revolves around Rosalind's life.

This was a very painful read for me. The young, insecure girl/woman seeking attention and approval at all costs solicited both empathy and annoyance.
And then as a mother who carried guilt for her part in the Megan story and the self-loathing that allowed her to make excuses for a flagrantly unfaithful husband

Very hard to take at times. I wanted to tell her to do something, speak up, stand up for yourself, but that’s not fair, she’s not me and I haven’t lived her life.

I found the build up to the “main event” very long winded which increased the pain.

The Meet ups with Sue and Megan were cringy, I did feel bad that she couldn’t find any closure or understanding with these people whose opinion held so much weight.

I think the message at the end was that she was starting to do things for herself and make decisions for herself (and Benji) rather than trying to figure out what everyone else wanted her to do or what they were thinking, so that’s good I guess

Ultimately I found this novel more troubling than enjoyable, but I suppose that’s to be expected from a story about this subject

Thank you to Random House Canada and NetGalley.

[arc review]
Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
The Damages releases July 25, 2023

<i>“Until she disappeared, I considered her a footnote to my life at Regis.”</I>

cw: cheating, discusses SA

Wow. There’s unlikeable, and then there’s UNLIKEABLE.

This story is split into 2 parts, and dual timeline — 1998 and 2020 (covid).

Rosalind and Megan were roommates in their first year of university. During the first week of January in 1998, their city was hit with the biggest ice storm, shutting down nearly all power.
It was during this time that Megan went missing, but Rosalind, failing to keep to a buddy system, mislead everyone into thinking that Megan went back to Toronto to be with her family, when that was the furthest thing from the truth.

Part 1 of this story was so heavy and uncomfortable for me to read and I could not find any enjoyment whatsoever.
Rosalind exuded this toxicity of seeking the validation of the popular girl, while undervaluing and taking advantage of the niceties of her roommate in private. Her motives were 100% performative, and I wish she would have had the confidence to be herself instead of so two-faced and a compulsive liar.

Roughly 20 years later, in part 2, in the midst of all the #metoo movements, Megan comes out with a lawsuit and allegations towards Lukas (Dutch) that he sexually assaulted her that weekend that she went missing. But where things get twisty is that Lukas and Rosalind ended up reconnecting and having a child together somewhere around 2008.

I found part 2 so underwhelming. Instead of diving further into Megan as a character, we focused on Rosalind and Lukas’ sexual relationship and his obsession with sex/lack of monogamy.
In all honesty, it felt very weird to have an entire book surrounded on sexual assault and not even get a direct pov from the victim, Megan.

Despite the large jump in time, it did not feel like Rosalind matured at all and she still struggled to create an identity for herself post-uni.
<i>“But what feels truer is that I was avoiding identity—I was afraid of fixing myself to the wrong places, wrong interests, wrong people. I was afraid to choose who I was in case I chose wrong.”</I>

Objectively, the writing was good, but the execution was not there for me.

This is the story of a university student, Megan, who goes missing in the winter of 1998-1999 from the university campus during a winter storm. Ros, the protagonist, Megan’s roommate, tells the story of what she knows and when she knows it. Ros is ostracized for her potential role in what has unfolded. Ultimately, the book is about the growth and maturation of Ros as she grows over a lifetime of insecurity to perhaps imagining a better future that she chooses for herself and her preteen son, Benji. I enjoyed the writer’s voice, the style of writing and the important questions that are asked during the excavation of the past through the lens of the present. It was nice recognizing the Canadian locations and our way of life through the characters. A great read! I look forward to more from this author. 4.5 stars out of 5.

Synopsis: In a multi-timeline plot, we meet Ros who in 1997 enrolls at a university outside of Toronto, Ontario. Ros was not one of the popular students in high school and her main goal for her university years was to be one of “the cool kids” and within a couple of days of moving into the dorms, she manages to insinuate herself into a group of students that she considers the “in-crowd”. Her one liability as she sees it is her roommate, Megan; a student that takes her classes seriously, dresses in outdated fashion and is definitely not a member of the in-crowd. Just after the new year, an ice storm hits and Ros’ is the only dorm with power. The buddy-system is in place with Megan being Ros’ buddy – the message from the university being that buddies are to stay together during this crisis. Classes are cancelled and dorm parties break out, during which Megan disappears. A few days go by before Ros even notices that Megan is missing and by the time the university discovers Megan’s absence, the students and administration are questioning why Ros was so negligent in being Megan’s buddy.

The storyline then moves ahead to 2020. The world is smack-dab in the Covid-19 pandemic and Ros has just found out that her estranged partner and father of her eleven-year-old son is being sued in civil court over accusations of a sexual assault. The lawsuit stirs up memories from the past which makes Ros confront her past behavior and question what really happened to Megan all those years ago.

My thoughts: I thought the author did an impressive job of making the reader examine their beliefs and thoughts about what constitutes a sexual assault, the #Metoo movement and the consequences of our actions. I found Ros and her ex-partner to be unlikeable characters, but it was necessary to the storyline and by the end of the book, I was able to see that at times Ros had also suffered in her life and that she was turning things around for herself and actively trying to be a better person.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book and gave it 4/5 stars. It kept me engaged, certainly provided food for thought with respect to sexual assault and I always looked forward to picking it up and continuing with the story.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

** Review will be posted on social media on publication date.