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Playing the Victim: How the Powerful Deny and Attack Survivors of Violence, from Domestic Abuse to Genocide
Not yet published
Expected 20 Oct 26Journalist 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.
- GenresNonfiction
Kindle Edition
Expected publication October 20, 2026
About the author
Kylie Cheung
7 books72 followershi hi i apologize for everything logged before 2026 i made this account in middle school <3
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
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
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.
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.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews