[image error]Some people find the sexual content of my book disturbing. Unpalatable.

What I find disturbing is adults being more offended by sex than by violence. The sexual behaviors in my book is meant to reflective the problematic nature of consent – particularly when individuals aren’t in their right mind (mental illness, PTSD, drugs, alcohol or otherwise).

The trouble that young women who’ve been abused (mentally and/or physically) as children have in establishing boundaries, speaking up for themselves, expressing their discomfort with a situation – even the mere act of realizing they are veing exploited.

I tried to portray this conflicted mindset as subtly as I could. Everything that happens to Roza is the cumulative effect of the injustices that shattered her character in the streets and at home, from her youngest days.

That makes hers a two-fold tragedy – that, nonetheless, she struggles hard to overcome.

It was natural the way that the #metoo and #neveragain movements intertwined themselves in my book – plotted years before it ever came up in the media. Because it was always there, lurking, bogging down the life of every woman who just wanted to be something, someone – despite all odds.

Photo by Zuza Krajewska