Jenna

Okay, this review is going to stray a little but bear with me it is worth the effort; trust me on that.

This is an unpleasant but well written and presented tale. Jenna is a schoolkid with a little sister Hermione and a useless, broken down prostitute as a mother. Their mother is too old and too drunk to be successful anymore but has been selling Jenna since she was 12 to her various Uncles.

Mother dearest is now starting to groom Hermione, who is about to hit 12 herself. Along the way, we learn that Mother makes no effort in the house, so Jenna is reduced to offering up sex and BJs to some of the pupils at school just to look after Hermione. To help her cope, she cuts herself and wears tights to hide the marks.

As I said, it isnt a pleasant read, but it is relevant of the society we live in it has to be said.

On the scrounge for money, she offers her usual for £5, and when the deal goes wrong, she is raped by four of the students at her school. As a parting gift, they casually drop some pound coins on her and walk off.

Another joyful lightweight scene, along with her entertaining Uncle Todd or posing for a couple of ‘amateur’ photographers.

In many ways, this last act breaks her. She changes, deciding she can’t do this anymore. So it moves from a victim used badly to a whirlwind of pain and suffering on those that had wronged her, even if they were teenage schoolboys.

The one boy who has been nice to her tries to help her and stand by her, and so we have some light in this world of darkness filled with pain, rape and a collection of gruesome deaths.

Okay, I really enjoyed this story, but it made me think back to my youth and the ‘that’ girl in my class, and later the girls who ended up like their mothers on the wrong side of the track with no way home.

The more I thought about it, the less black and white it was and how even her actions were wrong, so let me explain.

When I was at school, I noticed that the bullies in high school were always of the same ilk, not the bright sports characters but the losers who only understood violence. So were they victims to of parents who cared not and didn’t understand the pain they were inflicting.

Equally, to expand that, we have a girl (who is a victim via her mother’s actions) who sells herself for a few pounds, tart / slut, right? Especially from a kids perspective at school. She will do anything to you for money. Indeed that’s a slut? So if she has no respect, why should anyone treat her with any. Is it even rape if she will have sex with you for £10 anyway? There is a lot of misunderstood perceptions in there. It muddies the waters a lot.

Yet, it turns out she does it so that she can look after her sister and protect her from the monsters out there. She becomes the victim to make sure her sister never is. That is a heroic thing to do surely?

So by my estimation, the boys did it because she always accepted that sort of action in the past so was it rape to them? Yet, she sells herself to protect others, as I said. It is just that no one knows that or even cares.

So when it comes to the killing of the rapists, did they deserve their fate? Or did they do it because she had set up the situation with her very own actions?

Is there an answer to this question? I doubt it. But beyond all that, it is a great story, and although I felt the Adam / Jenna thing was a bit too much of pushing the boat out in search of a happy ending, I did enjoy this a lot.