Tara Reade shares the aftermath of the re-victimization of speaking out about her sexual assault, with then Senator Joe Biden in 1993, where the shaming, attacks, and threats instigated by the media sent her into a personal tailspin. Tara-rized viciously by cyber bullies, receiving death threats and fearing for her life and those of her family, Tara tells how living with no regret and coming forward was right for her conscience. The moment that defines Tara will not confine her, but instead move her forward by reclaiming her identity. Tara pulls together the pieces of her life experiences to forge a path of hope so that other survivors may have dignity coming forward. This memoir reflects that Tara knew the value of speaking truth to power even in the most difficult of circumstances.
I have been following Tara's story since she first appeared on Rising. It took the national media roughly a month to pick up her story. When the New York Times finally wrote about Reade's allegation, they made sure that the Biden campaign approved of the story before publishing it.
Tara addresses the dishonesty of the media in her book. She also gives credit to the reporters who sought out the truth and to those who told her story. The book gives readers a glimpse of how Reade has been treated since coming forward.
It has been hard to watch the democratic party turn their backs on the #metoo movement. Reade was politically inconvenient. If you believe that Reade is lying, you have to ask yourself why is she being slienced? Why are lies being told about Reade and why is she seen as such a threat? My belief is that Reade should be able to tell her story. The American people can make up their own mind whether to believe her or not. The problem is that the media is trying to tell you what to think. If you would like to hear Reade's story in her own words, read this book. Watch interviews with Tara Reade on YouTube.
Sexual assault should not be a partisan issue. If you ever question why survivors do not come forward, read this book and you will understand why.
Tara reade has been horribly slandered and ridiculed by the media and Democratic Party just so her rapist joe Biden could become president left out when the truth doesn’t fit in is a perfect tell all book that not only refutes the Democratic Party and the mainstream media’s false accusations against Tara but also is very educating on what women go through after sexual assault and domestic violence many parts of this book made me cry my mom was sexually assaulted and went through domestic violence so I know how hard it is to deal with it it’s absolutely shameful how the mainstream media neoliberal Democrats and of course joe Biden treated Tara reade
Thank you Tara for coming forward and telling your story You give a voice to many abused women I believe you and Many others do too hopefully one day Biden and all of the other abusers who hurt women will eventually face justice for their actions
This is one of the worst books I have read in a long time. Reade is a horrid writer. First of all, I couldn't believe how many typos were in the book. Has whoever published this twaddle ever heard of editing? Or proofreading? Typos aside, there are just so many poorly constructed, clumsily written sentences - too many to count. This book is such an obvious money-grab. If Reade had really wanted to tell her story in a meaningful way, she should have gotten someone to help her write it! Someone who's actually a halfway skilled writer.
I have read everything I could find about Reade's claims with respect to Joe Biden. Dozens of articles (don't let anyone tell you this "story" was ignored by the media), podcast transcripts, and, painfully, this book so as to gather as much information as possible from all sides. Having delved into this "story", I can say without hesitation that I find her claims to be nonsensical. One of the main reasons I don't think she was ever assaulted by Biden is that she claims it happened in a "semiprivate alcove-like" area somewhere between the senator's offices and the basement where the tram from the Capitol ran. The problem? There are no such areas - none exist. And this has been verified by multiple sources who literally walked all possible routes she could have taken.
That's just one reason I think Reade is lying. There are many, many more. She presents as nothing more than a parasitical con artist who disgraces true & real victims of sexual assault.
This book is terrible it reads like a fiction A failed grade school project..Her spelling is horrible Readers are forced to do their own editing she makes up names as she goes along and forgets them..A Masterpiece of confusion..Here dialogues PUGNANT her transitions laughable..This book shouldn't have been published shame on the publishers ...Reads like fiction you can literally just see her making stuff up as she goes along...I think this book is a flop..Its annoyed me when she keeps referring to herself as a "survivor' which I think she does to force the readers to take her words as facts although not proven in any court..I do not automatically assumes the woman is the one telling the truth so I was personally taken aback by that since I have brothers and I also have sisters and it would bother me equally if any false allegations were made against them...So the person she is accusing will remain innocent until proven otherwise. Also she claiming that she told this person and that person is not proof of anything because one have to assume she started out with the truth and there is no way to know that...Here is a Woman that lied in the faces of judges ..And now wants to sell herself as the truth teller..It's a bit odd. What's even more weird is the fact that she claim she and her family was being harassed nonetheless she wrote the entire name of her daughter in her book and mentioned her numerous times by name in every chapter...I know if my family and I were being harassed I wouldn't put their entire names in books..Once again a bit Odd..
I wanted to hear Tara’s story in her own words. The media is ruthless and cold when it comes to pushing their agenda and politicians are even worse. Knowing how elite politicians believe they are, it is easy to see how the Biden team would do everything in their power to discredit and silence Tara. I appreciate Tara coming forward to tell her story and to be a source of strength to other survivors of abuse. At times, the story felt disjointed and difficult to follow, but I’m glad I took the time to hear her story.
Thanks to Katie Halper for giving a platform for Tara Reade to share her devastating experience with then Senator (now President) Joe Biden so that we could see that patriarchal power is pervasive in the halls of power no matter which political party. The storytelling is genuine if a little haphazard and rambling. At the end, Tara is a woman trying to get through a difficult and traumatic experience while being thrust into the harsh criticism of the media and the hypocrisy of women's advocacy organizations when the truth doesn't fit in an election cycle.
Reading slave narratives of old, the impression is often that these formally enslaved autobiographers were writing themselves into life out of an imposed sense of nonentity, out of a sense of nothingness onesidedly defined by those who presumed paternal mastery and supremacy over them. Reade's autobiography, Left Out, does a similar job, bringing an unjustly trampled on, suffocated life into wholesome relief as a self-reproducing, thinking and free spirit. There is a campaigning aspect to this book. It's purpose is to table for wider public awareness the all round victimization Reade experienced as a White House employee. To be precise, the infantilization, victimization and inexplicable ostracization she was put through by an inner circle of unthinking publicity "sentries", perhaps silent enablers of the sexual assault (in plain speak, the rape) Reade experienced back in the early 1990s at the hands of a senator, presently the sitting head of state. But Reade does not dwell on this more than scandalous attack. She sheds light on life - the way things are - under the radar (a euphemism used to shut her up in the office), away from the public eye, off the platforms and podiums of political Washington, between empty hallways and offices, and in the unwritten hierarchal order between "masters" (usually male reps and senators) and "servants" (most often women interns and support staff). This invisible (essentially gendered) hierarchy, as Reade shows through closely attentive prose, feeds itself on petty bureaucratic tyranny, intimidation, and the normatively-sanctioned enslavement of office women to the sexual demands of their employing political overlords. No, Reade does not use such exaggerated language or pictures of the Antebellum plantation to describe the behind the scenes life in the capital. The idea of a plantation suggests itself in the observable behaviours, imposed silences, and the backstreet callousness of celebrated men whose double lives and crude excesses she brings to light in shadows behind the vaunted Hill. Still, that is only part of the story. Senator Biden of the early 1990s is a small, though, catelyzing part of Reade's burdens and, often frustrated career strivings that she endured in years after the encounter in the hall. Hers is a story of a soul rising, willing itself through a recovery of voice, recovery of its own history, its own human limbs and hands and eyes and thoughts adventures and interests, to speak truth and provide encouragement to women who similarly experience being confined to a mute life, that is to say, a living death in the midst of an otherwise vibrant (often false and illusionary) air of business or politics, established under the excessive power of super elite men (Democrat or Republican) and their backers. Reade writes with cutting openness about emotional and physically violent misogyny, beginning with abuse and rejection she suffered through her father starting in her early teens, and closing with the horrid experience with her young daughter of domestic violence, including exual assault and attempted murder at the hands of a man she had met during the terrible ordeal she went through with the senator years before the husband she had chosen would drop his mask of loving tenderness. Despite the painful intensity of its core themes, media complicity and the silence around the violence and sexually predatory culture in the highest halls of power in the US, Reade's book is best seen as among the finest literary achievements. In it, we come to appreciate much about Reade as a multidimensional person whose talents and interest range impressively over writing both as art and as a politics of expression and search for justice and truth in the face of patriarchal tyranny.
I don’t think she wanted to tell this story about being sexually assaulted by President Biden. I think she wanted to tell her story about being a real person who has been treated horrifically by politicians and the media. The Biden story is tucked into this book as if she knows she has to tell it because you’ve bought the book but she’d rather not.
This author just wants you to know her, the good and the bad. She is someone who has had a lot of pain and wants you to know that she’s a good person and a real person. The memoire meanders though. She jumps around a bit and she lost me a few times.
Content and style aside, I believe that she was assaulted by Joe Biden. I did not want to believe her. I tried my best to sweep her story out of my peripheral vision during the 2020 election so that I could vote for Joe Biden without this knowledge but now that I’ve read this, I believe her unequivocally.