I actually finished Speak Softly, She Can Hear, my second RIP Challenge book, a couple weeks back, but life’s been busy and I haven’t had the time (or inclination, if truth be told) to blog about it. I can’t remember how I first learned of this book, but I’d had it on my wishlist, and later my ‘to read’ list, for several months. Carole, a young and sheltered New York teenager in the 1960s, plans an illicit trip with her more cosmopolitan best friend Naomi to a Vermont cabin, where they both plan to lose their virginity to Eddie Lindbaeck, the sleaziest, most depraved villain I’ve come across in quite awhile. What begins as a night of forbidden pleasure ends in a shocking and terrible event that will change the course of Carole’s life. The secret of that night, which she is desperate to keep hidden, forces Carole to lead a life of secrets, burdened by guilt and fear of discovery.

While I read the book, tense and wondering what would happen and when Carole’s past would catch up to her, I questioned some of the actions of the characters. Why did Naomi and Eddie continue to swoop down into Carole’s life, why did Carole not try to look harder into the details of that fateful night? Then again, I can see how guilt and fear can make a person not think rationally, and it would hardly have made such a gripping story if Carole had been left to keep her secrets.