“My rage becomes a fire – to burn the system, to light the path, to forge a changed world out of the ashes of my pain.”

“We know the names of the men: Bill Cosby, Jeffrey Epstein, R. Kelly. But how many of the women they hurt can we name?”

“Survivors bear no responsibility for the violence that happens to them – but the world makes every effort to place the burden on us regardless.”

– Amanda Nguyen, Saving Five

I would include the entire book in the form of quotes if I could because every line is that powerful. There is no way to review a story like this, all I can say is that it was an honour to read Amanda Nguyen’s story. I cannot put into words how incredible this book is – a journey of pain, healing, anger, introspection, and most of all – perseverance against all odds. Every story of sexual assault is uniquely painful, and so often survivors are reduced to either their perpetrator or a statistic – it is instrumental that their stories are told so the world can begin to fathom what life-altering impact rape can have on person’s life. This impact is exacerbated when the system that is supposed to protect you is working against you. This is the heart of Amanda Nguyen’s story.

Before I read this book, I had no idea that rape kits were destroyed in the US – that’s something I cannot even fathom; when so much has been taken away from survivors, it’s cruel that their fight to justice immediately became a countdown. I could feel the panic rippling off the page reading those chapters of Amanda trying to locate her rape kit and having her clock reset every time the deadline approached. It was a phenomenal sacrifice for her to put her career on hold to fight the system that was destroying rape kits – seeing the roadblocks of getting her bill passed, especially the politicians that attempted to use her pain for a photo opportunity, was eye opening to the sad state of political affairs. Having to recount your trauma in front of people you hardly know to make this bill possible must’ve felt impossible – but Amanda did it knowing she was fighting for the 25 million rape survivors alongside herself.

I went into this book not knowing it was going to be told in alternating chapters from Amanda’s younger selves and her present self. This was a beautiful way to tell this story, seeing Amanda navigate her journey through the eyes of her younger self was so powerful – my heart ached for all the trauma she went through at each age – it’s honestly remarkable to see how she turned all her pain into power.

Ultimately, I want everyone to read this book – it’s important we hear the stories of survivors, their voices demand to be heard with respect. Amanda has told her story with such grace, nuance, and power – I learned so much about the shortcomings of the justice system and the monumental effort it takes to pass a bill for sexual assault survivors. Amanda Nguyen’s is just one story amongst so many, but I know her story will give power to those who’s stories have been unheard. More power to Amanda – it’s beautiful to see she’s fulfilled her dreams of becoming an astronaut too – her story deserves every star in the sky.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book.

Truly a memoir of hope. I sobbed. It's such a beautifully written book. I loved the magical realism element throughout, coping with that trauma and helping past selves with the stages of grief. Simple beautiful.

So grateful to Amanda for writing this book. Her story will save countless lives, and put valuable information in the hands of survivors everywhere.

SAVING FIVE does a wonderful job of walking us through Amanda’s history and her activism, and still maintains hope the entire way. The author said it herself “Never ever give us.”

Thanks to FSG and AUWA for the ARC!

SAVING FIVE is an eye-opening and deeply personal account of injustice, survival, and the power of fighting for systemic change.
Amanda Nguyen longed to escape her abusive home and start fresh at her dream school: Harvard. As a first-generation American and the daughter of a hypercritical Vietnamese mother, Amanda’s childhood was fraught with emotional turmoil. But college brought new trauma: she was sexually assaulted at a party.

As devastating as the assault was, discovering that her rape kit would be destroyed in just six months and that she could lose the right to press charges was another violation entirely. Torn between pursuing justice and protecting her career dreams in government work, Amanda faced impossible choices.

But she chose to act, not just for herself, but for every survivor who might come after her. This memoir traces Amanda’s evolution across the years, honoring her younger self while pushing forward with clarity and purpose. Through advocacy and unrelenting courage, Amanda helped draft the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights, proving one person can change the law.

READ THIS IF YOU:
📚 Appreciate memoirs that blend personal narrative with social justice
⚖️ Are interested in stories about legislative change and survivor advocacy
💔 Believe in the power of turning pain into purpose
🧠 Want to read a bold, introspective account of trauma, healing, and identity

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an electronic ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have followed Amanda Nguyen for quite a while now and was excited to hear she wrote a memoir about her journey. Reading in detail about her experience with the justice system was eye opening and her success in changing the system is a reminder that we have the power to create lasting change for the betrer. Reading her work and the way she wove together different aspects of her life was nothing short of inspiring. Will be thinking about this book for a long time to come.

A very impactful and important read. I read this not long after Amanda Nguyen's space flight and it really brought a lot into context and made me very happy and proud for her and her journey. She kept the promise she makes in the back of the book and it is very moving.

Amanda was raped at Harvard and forced to face the way society treats victims. She had to pay a huge bill for her rape kit and medical examination, she had six months before her rape kit was systematically destroyed and no easy way to renew the time limit - and all this knowing only 1% of rapes end in conviction. The perpetrators however get to carry on with their lives as if nothing happened.

Torn between career and justice she doesn't know what to do. It takes years to take a case to trial. It takes years to fight for justice. Does she have that time if she is also trying to have a career?

The book walks through her process of getting justice, whilst also exploring an internal space that she goes through to find relief, forgiveness and peace. She joins herself from other epochs of her life as they travel through the stages of grief and make peace with the unfairness of life. She meets herself at 5, 15, 22 and joins the story as 30. These chapters showcase a clear vision in how she wants the story to be told - there are a lot of visual elements and they are described in a way that makes it easy to follow and easy to see in ones minds eye.

Talking about the challenges, not just from the recovery, but also from politicians who care more about getting re-elected and looking good than justice and serving their people, was very eye opening. I don't know if the set up was my favourite for a memoir (half reality half dreamscape) but I respect the artistic and narrative choice and it was well executed. The book ends very quickly after getting her bill passed, and it would've obviously been very interesting and worthwhile to hear where and how life moved on from there, but the dreamscape parts do a good job in explaining her healing journey that extends beyond her activism.

It really pains me to say that I don't think this book is written well. So many generalizations AND a lot of over writing. There's such a rich history of organizing against campus rape that's missed here. I don't think Title IX is mentioned once, and that's an important part of this story.

An amazing memoir! Absolutely riveting. The author showed so much strength. The writing was great and I found it easy to follow. I will definitely be recommending to friends and family.

I do not typically like to rate biographies - but WOW!!! Amanda's story of perserverance left me in awe. I know you never realize how strong you are until you have to be strong, but I dont know that I could pull myself together and champion for others the way Amanda did. She had to decide between putting her dreams to work at NASA and the CIA on pause (because her application could be denied with pending legal cases), possibly indefinetly and getting justice/closure for her assault.

I finished her book today as she went to space and I think it is so fitting her story is just getting started. I cannot wait to see what she does next.

Thank you to NetGalley, Amanda Nguyen, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A truly moving memoir about finding yourself after trauma, making meaningful change, and never forgetting your dreams. Amanda takes off and heads to space so soon and she is a reminder to never give up on your dreams and to always try to make yourself proud <3 Thank you NetGalley, Amanda Nguyen, and Farrah, Straus, and Giroux for a copy of this book.

I don’t know if I’ve read a memoir quite like this one before. The format is unique. She speaks of her assault, the aftermath, and her victim advocacy. She also leads us on a parallel journey where she revisits past versions of herself through memories as she navigates the five stages of grief.

She talks about how she felt interacting with people afterwards and how small acts of kindness of just holding space for someone or acknowledging what they’re going through as a human and a survivor meant to her. Saving Five is a good reminder that you never know what someone is going through and it doesn’t cost anything to be kind.

As an aspiring astronaut, the Cosmos plays a big part in her story. There’s a steady foreshadowing in each celestial description she writes about in her memories - a lifelong dream that she must sacrifice for justice for herself and millions of other survivors.

I feel like Saving Five only scratched the surface of her story, and I hope she’ll be writing more books in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and FSG books for the gifted e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Saving Five was an excellent read. The writing was propulsive and very detailed. I would read more from this author.

"It dawns on me, of course, that rape victims are never meant to win. We're not meant to survive this at all. If we make it through the rape without drowning in our own blood, law enforcement, the justice system, and America itself are there to finish the job. To quiet our voices and sever our tongues. To betray us a second time. That's what it means to be raped."


4.5 stars.

Wow! What an insightful memoir! Thank you, Amanda Nguyen, for your activism and all of your hard work on the Survivors' Bill of Rights Act of 2016. Your perseverance is beyond admirable.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first requested this. I've read a couple of well-written, informative, and very moving memoirs by SA survivors. (What Is a Girl Worth?: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics and Know My Name are excellent reads.) I'm glad that Saving Five turned out to be a great addition to that list.

The author focuses heavily on her experiences with Massachusetts law on storing anonymous rape kits and pursuing justice at the state and national level. She goes going back and forth on whether pursuing justice will affect her future career in national security, imagined dialogue and situations with younger versions of herself as a form of therapy to heal her inner child, and a detailed look into what it's really like to get Congress to pass a bill and become law.

This was an interesting approach to her memoir that I found to be very candid and insightful. I really liked that she was very open about her thoughts and feelings, and especially her relationships with her family members such as her father. It was like listening to your best friend tell you about their childhood, their college experience, and life after. It was very raw and intimate.

The one thing that really drove it all home for me was her fear and anxiety over the six-month time limit on her rape kit (anonymous rape kits in Massachusetts were destroyed after six months), and how she had to keep begging for six month extensions over and over again while getting bounced back and forth from lawyers to various police departments to the rape crisis center when no one had solid answers for her. Talk about resilience.

"Every six months, I'll have to relive this nightmare and retrace the steps of this second betrayal, pleading once again for another reprieve. With no standard procedure for extending my kit, I've entered into yet another loop, a Sisyphean purgatory created just for survivors. A six-month cycle of requests and extensions, of needless flights and holding my breath, of organizing my life in an orbit around the day that I was raped. The justice system has sentenced me to live like this until I decide, forever cognizant of the day of my rape, marking heinous anniversaries again and again. The system will not let me ignore it; if I ever slip and forget to observe even one of my rape kit's god-awful birthdays or half-birthdays, I'll lose my chance at justice forever."


Side note, the author references Harry Potter several times and I thought we've moved on from that. This is my one petty reason for not giving this a full five stars.

Anyway, despite my one specific complaint, this was still a worthwhile read, and I'd recommend it if you're looking for a memoir on advocacy and justice.

Thank you to AUWA, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for this arc.

This story was incredible. Amanda Nguyen’s strength throughout this process was beautiful to read.  I loved how she used her past self at different ages as she went through the stages of grief. It was a traumatic event that she turned around and made an important mark on history for all survivors. She is the type of woman all women, young and old, should look up to!

Amanda Nguyen is an astronaut and an activist for sexual assault law reform. She just also happens to be a sexual assault survivor. In her memoir, which chronicles her journey as an activist, she uses a bit of magical realism to help show the journey she went on. I really enjoyed that element as it's something I haven't encountered in a memoir before. While reading, the format makes perfect sense and it also makes the title make sense. I'm sad that Amanda became a statistic that so many others are part of as sexual assault survivors. The law she helped to bring about really has helped so many and will continue to do so. Although she gave up a lot to help others, I'm glad she's on the road to her dream of being an astronaut.

Amanda Nguyen is an impressive and inspirational woman whom I was grateful to meet through this memoir. I was left with so many questions, however, after finishing her book. The speculative aspects of the story were creative and interesting, but they felt like a forced structural element wedged between a real-life narrative that was a little light on detail. I would have preferred a longer book that spent more time on Amanda's emergence from victim to activist to change maker. I do love speculative memoir and wanted this to work, but ultimately it didn't really. Not for me anyway. Nevertheless, I don't regret reading this book and learning about this courageous and remarkable young woman.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me an ecopy of this book.

This is an incredibly important and needed memoir. Saving Five is heartbreaking, horrifying, hopeful and inspiring.
I had heard about the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act but I had no idea about the rest of Nguyen’s story. I absolutely loved the use of her speculative fiction-esque approach to saving her past selves while going through different stages of grief/processing. This is a book that is going to stick with me. I only wish it was longer!
Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an ARC!

Thanks to NetGalley and AUWA for the ARC!

Amanda Nguyen’s "Saving Five" is a thoughtful memoir that reflects the chaos of its subject matter in its struggle to find a center.

It’s clear that Amanda Nguyen is an incredible person. Seriously, google her.

Her advocacy and intelligence are inspiring, particularly in the face of a government that seemed disinterested in her rights.

Nguyen shares so many incisive observations with such clarity, as seen in statements like the following: “The battleground for violence against women’s bodies can’t even pass the Bechdel test.” Furthermore, she perfectly captures the gut punch of realizing how disinterested the justice system is in helping survivors—it isn’t just a failure; it’s often actively in opposition. At one point, Nguyen notes that a representative dismissed her proposed legislation because it wouldn’t help them get re-elected. Disgusting.

Unfortunately, these objects of critique also prevent Saving Five from fully coalescing into a coherent book.

This is a story of how reality-shifting horror is muted by bureaucratic minutiae. It’s reflective of the patriarchal institutions that define justice—"if this can be an email thread, maybe it’s not such a big deal." By necessity, those same mundanities are the bulk of the memoir, and Nguyen’s interiority is deferred in favor of pages on pages about sending emails and waiting for replies. In a way, the approach depicts her ongoing fever pitch of anxiety, but it starts to feel like a TED Talk could accomplish the same thing more effectively because it simply cannot fill a whole book.

Perhaps in recognition of the actual story’s brevity, Nguyen makes the odd decision to use an allegorical framing device where different versions of herself travel across various “realms” to learn lessons. It feels at war with the weight of Nguyen’s story, and it might be a case where the distance afforded by fantasy benefits the author at the expense of the audience. I felt almost voyeuristic, as if I was reading Nguyen’s private response to a therapeutic writing exercise. If the author’s pain can only be addressed through this medium, I question whether it should be shared with readers.

Ultimately, I think maybe "Saving Five" was just published a few years too early. It dedicates about a page to the passage of the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act and quickly ends, which prevents readers from having a sense of its impact. Moreover, it feels almost like a reduction of Nguyen’s achievements. She is now an astronaut! I would have loved to read a version of this book that pieces all of the different aspects of her life together. As it stands, would-be readers may find a fuller picture of Amanda Nguyen and her work in her excellent social media presence and recent interviews.

I loved the unique storytelling and writing style of her memoir. In Saving Five Amanda Nguyen is seemingly on an adventure with herself at different ages. Through this part of the memoir we are traveling with Amanda through the stages of her processing the grief, childhood trauma, assault she's experienced throughout her life which have lead to her activism. This is an amazing story of her relentless pursuit advocating to change laws for rape survivors and their rape kits. She specifically addresses the lack of care and protection that rape victims and their evidence receive. “In America’s criminal justice system, survivors become background characters to a story that is actually about us—our lives, our bodies, our dignity.” Amanda's memoir is short but empowering. An influential activists and now an astronaut. She is an inspiration!

“So while I know that I will never be the person I was before I was r@ped—and I will never be the person I was before my own government tossed me into the machine and put me through the ringer—I cannot die before they hear from me.” - Amanda Nguyen, Saving Five

I will be thinking about Amanda’s story and the story of all survivors for years to come. How she had to continue reliving her experience every six months to get an extension on her kit was unjust and I felt so proud to read along as she fought for her rights.

The structure of Saving Five was a unique approach to a memoir and I thought the interwoven adventure of Five, Twenty-Two and Thirty was an effective way of showcasing the stages of grief. There are some staggering statistics included that truly blew my mind. It’s no wonder that so many women choose not to speak up, because why would they when no one will believe them. Saving Five fights to change that for all r@pe victims in the US.

Thank you to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux | AUWA, and the author Amanda Nguyen for an advanced copy. These are my honest thoughts.