What do you think?
Rate this book
Playing the Victim: How the Powerful Deny and Attack Survivors of Violence, from Domestic Abuse to Genocide
Journalist Kylie Cheung delivers an urgent, incisive look at how abusers—from empires to intimate partners—use the same gaslighting playbook to oppress victims, silence their voice, and stay in power
Who has the right to their own body? Who has the right to self-defense? Who gets to walk away?
From the genocide in Gaza to the state-sanctioned control of women’s bodies, Kylie Cheung confronts the most urgent moral and political crises of our time through an incisive, illuminating DARVO—Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
While DARVO originated in the psychology of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence, Cheung shows how it’s deployed en masse, at every level—and how it can become the blueprint for empire itself.
From the spectacle of Depp v. Heard to horrors perpetrated by Israeli prison guards, Cheung exposes how abusers both individual and institutional flip the script and perform victimhood to justify domination. With unflinching clarity, Playing the Victim traces how these tactics shape everything from media propaganda and imperial warfare to anti-feminist backlash, transphobic legislation, and racialized state violence. Each chapter peels back another layer of the mirror-world machine that distorts oppressors into victims and twists resistance into crime.
Essential for anyone seeking to understand how power works in the 21st century—and at whose cost—this book is piercing, clear-eyed, and rigorously researched. Unpacking how domestic abuse, intimate partner violence, colonial violence, and capitalist cruelty function as interlocking systems of control, Cheung helps readers understand how power hides behind ersatz victimhood—and how this plays us all.
Who has the right to their own body? Who has the right to self-defense? Who gets to walk away?
From the genocide in Gaza to the state-sanctioned control of women’s bodies, Kylie Cheung confronts the most urgent moral and political crises of our time through an incisive, illuminating DARVO—Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
While DARVO originated in the psychology of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence, Cheung shows how it’s deployed en masse, at every level—and how it can become the blueprint for empire itself.
From the spectacle of Depp v. Heard to horrors perpetrated by Israeli prison guards, Cheung exposes how abusers both individual and institutional flip the script and perform victimhood to justify domination. With unflinching clarity, Playing the Victim traces how these tactics shape everything from media propaganda and imperial warfare to anti-feminist backlash, transphobic legislation, and racialized state violence. Each chapter peels back another layer of the mirror-world machine that distorts oppressors into victims and twists resistance into crime.
Essential for anyone seeking to understand how power works in the 21st century—and at whose cost—this book is piercing, clear-eyed, and rigorously researched. Unpacking how domestic abuse, intimate partner violence, colonial violence, and capitalist cruelty function as interlocking systems of control, Cheung helps readers understand how power hides behind ersatz victimhood—and how this plays us all.
197 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 20, 2026
About the author
Kylie Cheung
7 books91 followershi hi i apologize for everything logged before 2026 i made this account in middle school <3
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
If I could highlight this entire book, I genuinely would. I could not put it down, even when reading it felt like swallowing something bitter because of how painfully familiar its arguments were. Playing the Victim is an incredibly heavy read, but it is also a necessary one, and I have already recommended it to so many people. Thank you to NetGalley and North Atlantic Books for the ARC.
As someone who is very much pro-Palestine, I think analyzing Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians through the framework of DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) is one of the most compelling aspects of this book. Cheung takes a concept often discussed in the context of domestic abuse and demonstrates how the same tactics can operate on a much larger scale, through states, institutions, and imperial powers. The language is eerily recognizable: “I was just defending myself. You gave me no choice. Look what you made me do.” We have heard these excuses from abusers, and we have heard them from governments responsible for unimaginable suffering. The scale changes, but the underlying logic remains disturbingly consistent. Those who hold power present themselves as the ones under attack, while the people they harm are expected to prove that they deserve sympathy in the first place.
What struck me most was how Cheung connects the treatment of Palestinian resistance to the ways survivors of sexual violence are scrutinized for their responses to abuse. Why are victims expected to remain perfectly composed, endlessly reasonable, and sufficiently palatable before anyone considers believing them? Why are the reactions of the oppressed placed under a microscope while the violence that made resistance necessary becomes background noise? One passage that really stayed with me was Cheung’s discussion of how victims must be “sanitized and subdued” before people can sympathize with them. I think this is such an important observation because it exposes how conditional our understanding of justice can be. We want victims who behave exactly as we expect victims to behave, people who are easy to defend because their pain does not make us uncomfortable. The moment they become angry, fight back, or refuse to perform the kind of helplessness we find acceptable, the conversation changes. Suddenly, we are interrogating their behavior instead of asking who hurt them and why that person was allowed to do so.
This becomes especially devastating when Cheung examines the language of self-defense used to justify Israel’s violence against Palestinians. The repeated demand for Palestinians to condemn their resistance, to pursue peaceful negotiations with an occupying power, or to demonstrate that they are sufficiently deserving of liberation ignores the profound imbalance between the people who control the conditions of their lives and those forced to survive under them.
What does a demand for peace actually mean when one side holds overwhelming power over the other’s freedom, movement, and survival? Who gets to define peace, and whose suffering is considered an acceptable price for maintaining it? These are questions that deserve far more serious consideration than the shallow insistence that both sides should simply stop fighting, as though the violence exists independently of the structures that sustain it.
As a Filipino, I also found myself thinking about how colonial violence is remembered, justified, and reproduced in our own national history. We have our own complicated relationship with narratives of victimhood, particularly when those in power frame resistance as a threat to peace and order. Filipino literature has long used the violated female body as a metaphor for the colonized motherland, most famously through the tragic history surrounding María Clara's mother, Doña Pia Alba, in José Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere. The image of the motherland as a woman subjected to the violence of those who claim authority over her makes for a painful parallel with Cheung’s discussion of sexual violence as a tool of colonial domination. It also made me think about the political language we encounter in the Philippines today, including the ways powerful political figures can position themselves as persecuted victims when confronted with accountability. In the context of the current Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment proceedings, for instance, I think it is worth paying attention to how political actors frame scrutiny, institutional accountability, and challenges to their authority. The circumstances are obviously different, and the framework should not be used as a substitute for examining specific evidence, but Cheung’s broader argument offers a useful question to carry into our own political landscape: who benefits when the person being held accountable successfully redirects public attention toward their own supposed victimhood?
Cheung also traces similar patterns through the Depp v. Heard trial, anti-abortion politics, transphobia, xenophobia, and the treatment of survivors within legal and institutional systems. These connections are what make the argument so effective for me. It becomes difficult to dismiss DARVO as an isolated interpersonal phenomenon when the same reversal of victim and offender keeps appearing in different places, often reinforced by the very institutions supposedly designed to protect vulnerable people. Marginalized people are portrayed as threats simply for existing, while the political movements seeking to restrict their rights present themselves as defenders of public safety. The contradiction is glaring, yet the performance of victimhood can make it remarkably easy for people to overlook who actually possesses the power to impose harm.
I will say that this is a very argument-driven book, and readers looking primarily for an immersive, narrative-led account may find its approach demanding. Cheung is interested in tracing patterns, examining rhetoric, and making connections across systems of power, so the reading experience can feel closer to following an extended political argument than moving through a conventional work of narrative nonfiction. Personally, I found that approach rewarding because it gave me a framework through which to understand things I had already been noticing but had not necessarily connected in quite the same way. There were passages I wanted to underline, revisit, and send to people immediately because they articulated something that has become increasingly difficult to ignore in our current political climate.
Ultimately, I think Playing the Victim asks us to reconsider what we mean when we talk about justice, neutrality, and the right to defend oneself. It challenges the assumption that the person who appears most frightened should be the person in the greatest danger, or that the person accused of causing harm must be the one with the least power. More importantly, it asks us to look beyond individual performances of innocence and examine the structures that determine whose suffering becomes politically meaningful and whose suffering can be dismissed, rationalized, or treated as collateral damage.
For me, the book’s most urgent lesson is that refusing to take a position is not always an act of fairness. When there is a profound imbalance of power, pretending that both sides stand on equal ground can end up protecting the very conditions that allow violence to continue. This is especially true when the people demanding neutrality are perfectly comfortable with the status quo. I believe we need to become more critical of the narratives powerful people tell about themselves, especially when those narratives require us to forget the people they have hurt. If the people responsible for violence can continually convince the world that they are the real victims, then learning to recognize DARVO is not simply a matter of psychological awareness. It becomes part of how we learn to see oppression for what it is, believe people who are suffering, and refuse to let the performance of victimhood become another justification for violence.
As someone who is very much pro-Palestine, I think analyzing Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians through the framework of DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) is one of the most compelling aspects of this book. Cheung takes a concept often discussed in the context of domestic abuse and demonstrates how the same tactics can operate on a much larger scale, through states, institutions, and imperial powers. The language is eerily recognizable: “I was just defending myself. You gave me no choice. Look what you made me do.” We have heard these excuses from abusers, and we have heard them from governments responsible for unimaginable suffering. The scale changes, but the underlying logic remains disturbingly consistent. Those who hold power present themselves as the ones under attack, while the people they harm are expected to prove that they deserve sympathy in the first place.
What struck me most was how Cheung connects the treatment of Palestinian resistance to the ways survivors of sexual violence are scrutinized for their responses to abuse. Why are victims expected to remain perfectly composed, endlessly reasonable, and sufficiently palatable before anyone considers believing them? Why are the reactions of the oppressed placed under a microscope while the violence that made resistance necessary becomes background noise? One passage that really stayed with me was Cheung’s discussion of how victims must be “sanitized and subdued” before people can sympathize with them. I think this is such an important observation because it exposes how conditional our understanding of justice can be. We want victims who behave exactly as we expect victims to behave, people who are easy to defend because their pain does not make us uncomfortable. The moment they become angry, fight back, or refuse to perform the kind of helplessness we find acceptable, the conversation changes. Suddenly, we are interrogating their behavior instead of asking who hurt them and why that person was allowed to do so.
This becomes especially devastating when Cheung examines the language of self-defense used to justify Israel’s violence against Palestinians. The repeated demand for Palestinians to condemn their resistance, to pursue peaceful negotiations with an occupying power, or to demonstrate that they are sufficiently deserving of liberation ignores the profound imbalance between the people who control the conditions of their lives and those forced to survive under them.
What does a demand for peace actually mean when one side holds overwhelming power over the other’s freedom, movement, and survival? Who gets to define peace, and whose suffering is considered an acceptable price for maintaining it? These are questions that deserve far more serious consideration than the shallow insistence that both sides should simply stop fighting, as though the violence exists independently of the structures that sustain it.
As a Filipino, I also found myself thinking about how colonial violence is remembered, justified, and reproduced in our own national history. We have our own complicated relationship with narratives of victimhood, particularly when those in power frame resistance as a threat to peace and order. Filipino literature has long used the violated female body as a metaphor for the colonized motherland, most famously through the tragic history surrounding María Clara's mother, Doña Pia Alba, in José Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere. The image of the motherland as a woman subjected to the violence of those who claim authority over her makes for a painful parallel with Cheung’s discussion of sexual violence as a tool of colonial domination. It also made me think about the political language we encounter in the Philippines today, including the ways powerful political figures can position themselves as persecuted victims when confronted with accountability. In the context of the current Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment proceedings, for instance, I think it is worth paying attention to how political actors frame scrutiny, institutional accountability, and challenges to their authority. The circumstances are obviously different, and the framework should not be used as a substitute for examining specific evidence, but Cheung’s broader argument offers a useful question to carry into our own political landscape: who benefits when the person being held accountable successfully redirects public attention toward their own supposed victimhood?
Cheung also traces similar patterns through the Depp v. Heard trial, anti-abortion politics, transphobia, xenophobia, and the treatment of survivors within legal and institutional systems. These connections are what make the argument so effective for me. It becomes difficult to dismiss DARVO as an isolated interpersonal phenomenon when the same reversal of victim and offender keeps appearing in different places, often reinforced by the very institutions supposedly designed to protect vulnerable people. Marginalized people are portrayed as threats simply for existing, while the political movements seeking to restrict their rights present themselves as defenders of public safety. The contradiction is glaring, yet the performance of victimhood can make it remarkably easy for people to overlook who actually possesses the power to impose harm.
I will say that this is a very argument-driven book, and readers looking primarily for an immersive, narrative-led account may find its approach demanding. Cheung is interested in tracing patterns, examining rhetoric, and making connections across systems of power, so the reading experience can feel closer to following an extended political argument than moving through a conventional work of narrative nonfiction. Personally, I found that approach rewarding because it gave me a framework through which to understand things I had already been noticing but had not necessarily connected in quite the same way. There were passages I wanted to underline, revisit, and send to people immediately because they articulated something that has become increasingly difficult to ignore in our current political climate.
Ultimately, I think Playing the Victim asks us to reconsider what we mean when we talk about justice, neutrality, and the right to defend oneself. It challenges the assumption that the person who appears most frightened should be the person in the greatest danger, or that the person accused of causing harm must be the one with the least power. More importantly, it asks us to look beyond individual performances of innocence and examine the structures that determine whose suffering becomes politically meaningful and whose suffering can be dismissed, rationalized, or treated as collateral damage.
For me, the book’s most urgent lesson is that refusing to take a position is not always an act of fairness. When there is a profound imbalance of power, pretending that both sides stand on equal ground can end up protecting the very conditions that allow violence to continue. This is especially true when the people demanding neutrality are perfectly comfortable with the status quo. I believe we need to become more critical of the narratives powerful people tell about themselves, especially when those narratives require us to forget the people they have hurt. If the people responsible for violence can continually convince the world that they are the real victims, then learning to recognize DARVO is not simply a matter of psychological awareness. It becomes part of how we learn to see oppression for what it is, believe people who are suffering, and refuse to let the performance of victimhood become another justification for violence.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to NetGalley and North Atlantic Books for this ARC.
Rating: 4.5 Stars rounded up.
“Playing the Victim” takes a look at the strategy the powerful use to portray themselves as the victim in situations they are the aggressor in. While this strategy – DARVO, or Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender – originates in psychological analysis of domestic abuse, Cheung takes the concept beyond this scope and uses it to analyse sexism on a wider scale, transphobic legislation, racialised state violence, media propaganda and especially the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.
Overall, I thought this was a very well-researched book that brought up an analytical perspective on the oppressor/abuse-victim relationship that I feel most people who keep up with these issues have probably noticed, but maybe not been able to precisely put into words. This book gives you the tools and framework to understand and explain these dynamics on a deeper level.
I absolutely agree with every point made in this book, and it brought up a lot of interesting and important examples to support its point and help the reader see the strategy of DARVO used in real life.
My only real issue with this book is that there were a few points and examples that were repeated throughout several chapters, which I can understand to some extent as they simply fit the argument made in each chapter, unfortunately this made for a bit less smooth of a reading experience in some chapters.
Still, this is a book that I feel would be an important read for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of these relations of power and the strategies used to maintain and increase these power imbalances. If you see yourself as someone who is interested in and cares about the topics I listed in the opening paragraph, I recommend giving this book a shot!
Rating: 4.5 Stars rounded up.
“Playing the Victim” takes a look at the strategy the powerful use to portray themselves as the victim in situations they are the aggressor in. While this strategy – DARVO, or Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender – originates in psychological analysis of domestic abuse, Cheung takes the concept beyond this scope and uses it to analyse sexism on a wider scale, transphobic legislation, racialised state violence, media propaganda and especially the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.
Overall, I thought this was a very well-researched book that brought up an analytical perspective on the oppressor/abuse-victim relationship that I feel most people who keep up with these issues have probably noticed, but maybe not been able to precisely put into words. This book gives you the tools and framework to understand and explain these dynamics on a deeper level.
I absolutely agree with every point made in this book, and it brought up a lot of interesting and important examples to support its point and help the reader see the strategy of DARVO used in real life.
My only real issue with this book is that there were a few points and examples that were repeated throughout several chapters, which I can understand to some extent as they simply fit the argument made in each chapter, unfortunately this made for a bit less smooth of a reading experience in some chapters.
Still, this is a book that I feel would be an important read for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of these relations of power and the strategies used to maintain and increase these power imbalances. If you see yourself as someone who is interested in and cares about the topics I listed in the opening paragraph, I recommend giving this book a shot!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
DARVO - deny, attack, reverse victim and oppressor
A technique used by aggressors to victimise themselves and, in turn, make the real victim the abuser. Deny the reality that the victim is telling the truth, attack the victim with informations that change the paradigm and reverse the positions, making the abuser a good person in the eye of the public and judicial system.
I was a little bit familiar with this but I never seen it used in a case study other than domestic violence or sexual assault. I must admit I didn’t see it until I read this book. The genocide in Gaza and the way the western media and politicians talk about it, does sound a lot like a reverse, or trying to, since now people are no longer interested in listening to their lies and misinformation. The book also dwells into cases in America which can be associated with DARVO, such as making the rapist the victim of slander, abortion abolitionists framing women as criminals for having an abortion and others.
I went into the book expecting another subject but I wasn’t disappointed, I actually liked the feminist approach from this perspective. I want to mention that is a more USA perspective and about the relation between USA and Israel, the western world is mentioned but nothing much is expended on in this part or any other, and the cases and examples are mostly USA based. In relation to USA perspective I can say that it’s just incredibly arrogance thinking that all the world revolves around them and that it dictates the views of the people. There are so many more people who fight for a free Palestine and they lost any reputation they had in so many countries. Spain, Ireland and so many more in the future, hope so, will start to detach themselves from this rotten country. In case of Romania, the country where I’m from, all I can say is that our political class is doing some incredibly unfair deals in recent events, naming parks and years after Trump and the USA. I can only hope we will move away from this disgusting political class.
It is a hard book to read, there are certain passages where it is hard to go on and I had to pause and come back to it due to the discomfort it caused me, but discomfort is good, it is needed in life.
✨ARC from netgalley✨
A technique used by aggressors to victimise themselves and, in turn, make the real victim the abuser. Deny the reality that the victim is telling the truth, attack the victim with informations that change the paradigm and reverse the positions, making the abuser a good person in the eye of the public and judicial system.
I was a little bit familiar with this but I never seen it used in a case study other than domestic violence or sexual assault. I must admit I didn’t see it until I read this book. The genocide in Gaza and the way the western media and politicians talk about it, does sound a lot like a reverse, or trying to, since now people are no longer interested in listening to their lies and misinformation. The book also dwells into cases in America which can be associated with DARVO, such as making the rapist the victim of slander, abortion abolitionists framing women as criminals for having an abortion and others.
I went into the book expecting another subject but I wasn’t disappointed, I actually liked the feminist approach from this perspective. I want to mention that is a more USA perspective and about the relation between USA and Israel, the western world is mentioned but nothing much is expended on in this part or any other, and the cases and examples are mostly USA based. In relation to USA perspective I can say that it’s just incredibly arrogance thinking that all the world revolves around them and that it dictates the views of the people. There are so many more people who fight for a free Palestine and they lost any reputation they had in so many countries. Spain, Ireland and so many more in the future, hope so, will start to detach themselves from this rotten country. In case of Romania, the country where I’m from, all I can say is that our political class is doing some incredibly unfair deals in recent events, naming parks and years after Trump and the USA. I can only hope we will move away from this disgusting political class.
It is a hard book to read, there are certain passages where it is hard to go on and I had to pause and come back to it due to the discomfort it caused me, but discomfort is good, it is needed in life.
✨ARC from netgalley✨
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
“Violence is children going to bed hungry in a country that refuses to appropriately tax billionaires. Violence is a higher education system so wildly unaffordable that predominantly poor people of color have no other viable options but to enlist in the US military, into which the United States pours $1 trillion each year. And violence is certainly the highest maternal mortality rate among wealthy nations.”
I just know Kylie Cheung would be an invaluable asset to a graduate level sociolegal studies seminar, and I wish she was in mine. An incredibly incisively and astute commentary on the ways in which DARVO is structurally engrained and perpetuated through oppressive systems of power and governance, using Israel and the United States as apt case studies.
I just know Kylie Cheung would be an invaluable asset to a graduate level sociolegal studies seminar, and I wish she was in mine. An incredibly incisively and astute commentary on the ways in which DARVO is structurally engrained and perpetuated through oppressive systems of power and governance, using Israel and the United States as apt case studies.
October 28, 2026
What happens when the person or institution accused of causing harm turns the accusation around and presents itself as the victim? In *Playing the Victim*, journalist Kylie Cheung explores this unsettling reversal and examines how it can shape everything from intimate relationships to public narratives about violence, power, and accountability.
The book centers on DARVO, which stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. Originally associated with responses to accusations of abuse, this framework becomes a way for Cheung to examine how people in positions of power may discredit survivors, redirect blame, and portray resistance as wrongdoing.
One of the book’s defining features is its movement between personal and institutional forms of harm. Cheung connects patterns familiar from domestic abuse with broader political and social conflicts, asking readers to consider how similar rhetorical strategies can operate across very different contexts. The comparison invites readers to examine not only what is being said, but who has the power to shape the story.
Cheung also explores the role of media narratives in influencing public perceptions of survivors, perpetrators, and resistance. From the public spectacle surrounding Depp v. Heard to the treatment of Palestinians and debates over bodily autonomy, the book considers how repeated claims, selective framing, and accusations against those who speak out can affect which experiences receive recognition.
The subject is particularly relevant to conversations about gender-based violence, reproductive justice, colonialism, and racialized state power. By bringing these issues into the same discussion, Cheung encourages readers to look for the structures and assumptions that allow harmful behavior to be defended or normalized.
Another important dimension is the question of accountability. When the person accused of harm successfully redirects attention toward their own supposed victimhood, the original complaint can disappear from public view. Understanding this dynamic may help readers evaluate arguments more carefully, distinguish claims from evidence, and recognize when responsibility is being shifted away from the underlying harm.
Cheung’s work as a journalist covering reproductive justice and gender-based violence gives the book continuity with her broader examination of bodily autonomy and survivor advocacy. Rather than treating these issues as isolated controversies, she asks readers to consider how power influences whose accounts are believed and whose experiences are dismissed.
*Playing the Victim* promises a challenging contribution to discussions about abuse, political communication, and the struggle to establish accountability. For readers interested in feminism, survivor justice, media criticism, and the relationship between personal violence and institutional power, it offers a framework for examining how victimhood can be invoked, contested, and used to shape public understanding.
*Note: This review is based on the supplied book description and published book information, not on a claim of having read the complete book.*
The book centers on DARVO, which stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. Originally associated with responses to accusations of abuse, this framework becomes a way for Cheung to examine how people in positions of power may discredit survivors, redirect blame, and portray resistance as wrongdoing.
One of the book’s defining features is its movement between personal and institutional forms of harm. Cheung connects patterns familiar from domestic abuse with broader political and social conflicts, asking readers to consider how similar rhetorical strategies can operate across very different contexts. The comparison invites readers to examine not only what is being said, but who has the power to shape the story.
Cheung also explores the role of media narratives in influencing public perceptions of survivors, perpetrators, and resistance. From the public spectacle surrounding Depp v. Heard to the treatment of Palestinians and debates over bodily autonomy, the book considers how repeated claims, selective framing, and accusations against those who speak out can affect which experiences receive recognition.
The subject is particularly relevant to conversations about gender-based violence, reproductive justice, colonialism, and racialized state power. By bringing these issues into the same discussion, Cheung encourages readers to look for the structures and assumptions that allow harmful behavior to be defended or normalized.
Another important dimension is the question of accountability. When the person accused of harm successfully redirects attention toward their own supposed victimhood, the original complaint can disappear from public view. Understanding this dynamic may help readers evaluate arguments more carefully, distinguish claims from evidence, and recognize when responsibility is being shifted away from the underlying harm.
Cheung’s work as a journalist covering reproductive justice and gender-based violence gives the book continuity with her broader examination of bodily autonomy and survivor advocacy. Rather than treating these issues as isolated controversies, she asks readers to consider how power influences whose accounts are believed and whose experiences are dismissed.
*Playing the Victim* promises a challenging contribution to discussions about abuse, political communication, and the struggle to establish accountability. For readers interested in feminism, survivor justice, media criticism, and the relationship between personal violence and institutional power, it offers a framework for examining how victimhood can be invoked, contested, and used to shape public understanding.
*Note: This review is based on the supplied book description and published book information, not on a claim of having read the complete book.*
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Playing the Victim is unflinching dissection of the ways in which perpetrators of abuse, from individuals to genocidal governments, use the DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) framework to evade accountability and instead place fault for their actions onto their victims. Cheung uses examples including ‘investigations’ of sexual assault on college campuses, domestic abuse claims in child custody cases, celebrity abuse trials circuses, and governments justifying committing atrocities. The primary example used throughout the book is the Palestinian genocide.
This is not an enjoyable or entertaining read (it was actually really difficult and at times enraging to read), but it is incredibly important. Understanding DARVO tactics is foundational context for anyone who wants to critically engage with the media they consume.
I was already familiar with many of the subjects included in Playing the Victim. None of the content in it was necessarily groundbreaking or new. However, it is impressive how deftly Cheung has crafted a well-researched book with such a wide scope, and she has done it in a way that is accessible and relevant for readers with little to no background knowledge of the subject.
Suggested for readers who resonated with One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Perfect Victims, or No Visible Bruises. It’s also a must read for fans of Kat Tenbarg, Taylor Lorenz, or Matt Bernstein.
Thanks to North Atlantic Books and Edelweiss+ for providing me with an eARC.
This is not an enjoyable or entertaining read (it was actually really difficult and at times enraging to read), but it is incredibly important. Understanding DARVO tactics is foundational context for anyone who wants to critically engage with the media they consume.
I was already familiar with many of the subjects included in Playing the Victim. None of the content in it was necessarily groundbreaking or new. However, it is impressive how deftly Cheung has crafted a well-researched book with such a wide scope, and she has done it in a way that is accessible and relevant for readers with little to no background knowledge of the subject.
Suggested for readers who resonated with One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Perfect Victims, or No Visible Bruises. It’s also a must read for fans of Kat Tenbarg, Taylor Lorenz, or Matt Bernstein.
Thanks to North Atlantic Books and Edelweiss+ for providing me with an eARC.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
In Playing the Victim, Cheung explores how those in power use DARVO - deny, attack, reverse victim and oppressor - to their advantage, whether in interpersonal relationships or political systems. It's an impassioned and well-reasoned argument, offering a thought-provoking perspective on the power dynamics at play from domestic abuse and abortion rights to the genocide in Gaza.
The book does take a particularly American view that I'm sure would translate to other western case studies. I'd have liked to have seen a bit more exploration of the postcolonial dynamics involved in so many of these power relations - some of the repetition could be stripped back to allow a bit more breadth. But even with its American lens, it's an important and thought-provoking read for any readers with an interest in challenging abuse of power.
The book does take a particularly American view that I'm sure would translate to other western case studies. I'd have liked to have seen a bit more exploration of the postcolonial dynamics involved in so many of these power relations - some of the repetition could be stripped back to allow a bit more breadth. But even with its American lens, it's an important and thought-provoking read for any readers with an interest in challenging abuse of power.
October 22, 2026
When I tell you I was HOOKED, and completely engaged for every second of this read, I mean it. I finished this book in like two days, I could not put it down. Some parts, such as victim testimonies genuinely made cry, it is impossible not to have a visceral reaction to the atrocities being shared. Kylie is the feminist / humanitarian voice that everyone, especially our up and coming generations need to hear. She advocates across the board for those who are suffering and oppressed. She has such a deeply impactful way of delivering this information that does resonate, and will resonate with so many more. I am beyond grateful that I got to read this book, I was already passionate about many the causes she detailed, and my eyes have only been opened further. THANK YOU MS KYLIE CHEUNG.
October 29, 2026
Quite repetitive imo. Decent thesis.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews