Saving Five Book Review and Book Summary
Have you ever felt profoundly let down by the very system designed to protect you? Amanda Nguyen's powerful memoir, Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope, takes readers through her personal journey of surviving trauma and fighting systemic injustice, highlighting her resilience and unwavering pursuit of change.
A Personal and Activist Journey
Amanda Nguyen experienced unimaginable trauma when she was sexually assaulted during her time at Harvard. What compounded her pain was discovering that her rape kit had only a six-month preservation window under Massachusetts law. This betrayal by the justice system ignited Amanda's activism, ultimately leading to the landmark Federal Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act of 2016.
Reader Reactions and Reviews
With an impressive 4.53 average rating on Goodreads, readers describe the memoir as courageous, inspiring, and informative. Many appreciate Amanda’s bravery and activism, particularly highlighting the unique narrative technique of conversing with her younger selves to explore her emotional healing. While some reviewers found this storytelling style impactful and moving, others felt the allegorical elements occasionally detracted from the memoir's cohesiveness.
Core Themes and Insights
Systemic Betrayal and Activism
Nguyen vividly illustrates the devastating impact of systemic failures on sexual assault survivors. Her experience demonstrates how legal inadequacies exacerbate trauma and highlights the importance of advocacy and legislative change.
Creating Lasting Change
Amanda’s activism led to the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act, ensuring essential rights like preservation and transparency regarding rape kits. Her detailed account of the complexities of passing federal legislation underscores the challenges and significance of systemic change.
Conversations with Younger Selves
A unique aspect of Nguyen’s memoir is her use of imagined dialogues with her younger selves at ages 5, 10, 15, and 22. These conversations serve as a powerful vehicle for exploring her grief, trauma, and eventual healing, though readers' responses to this creative approach vary.
Major Themes
Resilience and Hope
Nguyen's journey underscores resilience and the power of hope. She encapsulates her philosophy with the poignant insight, "We create our own closure by creating our own justice and resilience."
Healing Through Self-Dialogue
The memoir emphasizes the value of self-compassion and inner dialogue as powerful tools for emotional healing and processing trauma.
Final Reflections
Saving Five is a deeply personal yet universally resonant memoir that masterfully connects individual trauma with broader social advocacy. Amanda Nguyen's story not only illuminates the failures within the justice system but also celebrates the potential for personal and societal transformation.
Reflecting on Amanda's powerful narrative, consider: How might your own experiences inspire advocacy or change, both personally and for your community?
Amanda Nguyen's Saving Five offers readers a profound journey of pain, resilience, and the unwavering pursuit of justice and hope.
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Ever feel like, you know, the system, the one that's supposed to be there for you, totally lets you down.
Oh yeah.
Like that moment when trust just shatters, and you realize, wow, I have to fight for myself here.
Absolutely.
That's the kind of heavy stuff.
Yeah.
We're gonna be diving into today, a deep dive into a powerful memoir.
It's called Saving Five, A Memoir of Hope, by Amanda Nguyen.
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Settle in, and let's get right to the heart of today's book.
Now, before we get too far into this, we do want to give a heads up.
Sure.
We will be talking about some sensitive topics.
Okay.
Things like sexual assault.
Right.
And childhood abuse.
Gotcha.
So, listener, just be aware of that as we go through this.
We'll approach it all sensitively.
Absolutely, with care.
With care and respect.
Yeah.
So, Saving Five.
This book takes us right into Amanda Nguyen's life.
Okay.
After she was raped at Harvard.
And what comes next is it's just so frustrating.
Yeah.
It's her experience with the justice system.
Oh, gosh.
And this shocking thing, she finds out that her anonymous rape kit only has like a six-month preservation window in Picayouset.
Six months?
Six months.
That's it.
Yeah.
Wow.
It was wild.
And this just lit a fire in her.
I bet.
You know?
Yeah.
Led to her becoming this incredible activist.
And eventually, she was a big part of getting the Federal Sexual Assault Survivors Rights Act passed in 2016.
Wow.
But like woven through all of that is this personal journey.
Okay.
And it's so unique and moving because she's dealing with her trauma.
Right.
By like engaging with different versions of her younger self.
Oh, that's interesting.
And it's really about navigating all the complexities of grief.
So our goal with this Deep Dive is to kind of unpack the core insights from Amanda's experiences.
You know, not just what happened, but how she went through this trauma and turned this pain into actual change.
Yeah, tangible change.
Tangible change, yeah.
So let's unpack this.
Okay, yeah.
The book starts by giving us this glimpse into Amanda's background, like leading up to the assault.
Okay.
What's fascinating here is the context she brings to Harvard.
She came from a really rough home life, experienced abuse from her father.
Gosh.
Actually, there was an injunction against him, like keeping him off campus.
Wow.
So for her, initially, Harvard was like this safe space.
Yeah.
A new beginning.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A fresh start.
Absolutely.
And then in October 2013, that feeling of safety, yeah.
It's shattered.
Oh, no.
When she is raped by another student.
Oh, gosh.
Now, it's powerful.
The memoir, she chooses to not give us a lot of the explicit details.
Really?
Of the assault or about the person who did it.
Yeah.
Interesting.
That's a deliberate choice.
It is.
And I think it really shifts how we see the story.
Right.
One review even pointed out, even though their headings are like three hours until the rape, it doesn't actually describe what happened in detail.
Might be surprising to some readers, but it really changes the focus.
So it's like she's leading us away from the actual violence.
Totally.
And more towards what happens next.
Yes.
The fallout, the system, the failings.
Exactly.
And this becomes like crystal clear when she learns about this six month destruction policy.
Right.
Right.
For anonymous rape kits in Massachusetts.
This was a huge turning point for her.
I can imagine.
So you see, this rule, this six month rule, it wasn't just about losing evidence.
It showed this whole system that was like more worried about being efficient than taking care of survivors.
Oh, wow.
It's like this big insight into how the system can make things so much worse.
Yeah.
It compounds the trauma almost.
Exactly.
And she says, the worst thing that happened to me wasn't being raped.
It was being betrayed by America's criminal justice system.
Wow.
Like that feeling of being hurt again by the very system that should be helping you.
Absolutely.
It's just so powerful.
It's a huge theme early in the book.
Yeah.
So now she has this awful news.
Yeah.
And time's ticking on her evidence.
Right.
Amanda's at a crossroads.
Okay.
She has this dream of working at NASA.
Right.
Like this lifelong dream.
But now she has to decide, do I go after justice?
Oh, wow.
Or do I follow my dream?
What a choice.
It had to be so tough.
Yeah.
To weigh that personal trauma against ambition.
Yeah.
It sets up this shift towards activism.
Right.
So you can see how this feeling of betrayal, it fueled her need to do something.
Yes.
To take action.
Yeah.
And that brings us to her activism.
All right.
So that frustration turned into action.
Instead of just like giving up, she fights back.
Yeah.
And that's where we get to the heart of her work.
Right.
A big part of Saving Five is about how Amanda led this effort to get the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act passed.
Wow.
In 2016.
Okay.
And as she found out, getting a law passed, it is not easy.
No, I imagine not.
It really highlights how complex it is and how some reviewers said it.
Yeah.
The crazy machinations.
The nations, yeah.
That go into passing a federal law.
It's a whole process.
Amanda actually looked up the stats.
Okay.
On how often federal legislation actually makes it.
It's something like 1%.
1%.
Wow.
Imagine you trying to deal with all these committees and amendments and votes.
Yeah, yeah.
All these roadblocks and political maneuvering.
Right.
The machinations.
The machinations.
That's what she was up against.
So it makes her achievement even more incredible.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
And what this law was trying to do.
Yeah.
Was so important.
Yeah.
It was about making sure that other survivors.
Right.
Wouldn't have to go through the same, you know, agonizing challenges that she did.
Right.
With their evidence.
With their evidence.
With their rights.
Yeah.
And just basic rights.
Yes.
To be heard and be respected in the system.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And the act, it made sure that some really important rights were there.
Okay.
Like you have the right to have your evidence kit preserved for the whole statute of limitations.
You have the right to be told before they destroy a kit.
Right.
And you have the right to know what came out of your forensic exam.
Oh, wow.
These seem basic.
They do.
But before this act, they weren't protected everywhere.
That's wild.
Yeah.
So survivors actually get to know the findings now of the exam.
Of that exam.
That's huge.
It is huge.
Yeah.
And this fight, this fight took a lot out of her.
Yeah.
I mean, remember we talked about her wanting to work at NASA?
Right.
Yeah.
She put all that on hold.
Wow.
To focus on this.
That says a lot about her commitment.
It does.
Yeah.
So we have this powerful fight for change.
But then Amanda also brings in this personal healing journey.
Okay.
Through this idea of Saving Five.
Saving Five.
Can you tell us how that works, how that's a part of the book?
Yeah.
This is maybe one of the most unique and talked about parts of the memoir.
So Amanda, as an adult, she actually has these dialogues with her younger self at different ages, like 5, 10, 15, and 22.
Interesting.
Now it's not literal.
It's not fantasy.
It's a way for her to explore her emotions and how she healed.
It's a tool, a storytelling tool.
Yeah, a narrative tool.
Yeah.
And these conversations, they're meant to show us how she's going through the stages of grief.
Denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, acceptance.
Right.
The classic stages.
Yeah.
And it's not just about the assault.
It's about the trauma she went through as a kid too.
Right.
From that tough home life.
Right.
So you might know those stages.
Yeah.
Denial, anger, bargaining.
Yeah.
Sadness, acceptance.
They're a common way to understand how we deal with loss and trauma.
Exactly.
And Amanda uses these talks with her younger selves to move through all of that.
That's fascinating.
Yeah.
So a lot of the reviews, they found this really profound and moving.
Yeah.
Because it's creative, it's effective, it's a way to get at that real deep emotional truth.
Yes.
Without having to go into every little detail.
Right.
Of the trauma.
It's not, you know, graphic or anything.
It's more about the emotion.
Exactly.
But some people, some reviewers, they thought these parts were a little, I don't know, a little too cute or maybe a little all over the place.
Like the allegory didn't really click for them.
Right.
So it didn't work for everyone.
It shows how different parts of the book connect with different people.
Right.
It's a really personal and kind of experimental way to tell a story in a memoir.
And the title itself, Saving Five, that ties into this whole concept, right?
It's about making her five-year-old self proud of the woman she's become.
Of who she became.
And all of this, it leads to this big key principle that comes out of Amanda's story.
Right.
It's about resilience and hope.
Hope, yeah.
She took all this trauma and turned it into action, you know?
Found hope even when things were so hard.
And she says it beautifully.
She says, we create our own closure by creating our own justice and resilience.
Wow.
That's powerful.
It really is.
It really captures her journey.
Yes.
The message.
The message.
So let's see how Saving Five is doing out there.
Okay.
As of today, March 16th, 2025.
Right.
It's got an average rating of 4.5, three stars on Goodreads.
That's really good.
That's pretty amazing.
Yeah.
And if you look at the reviews, there are some themes that come up again and again.
Okay.
People call it inspirational, courageous.
Yeah.
It's a story about survival and about making a difference.
About activism.
Activism, yeah.
And people really connect with the way she tells the story.
Right.
With her younger selves.
With those dialogues.
Yeah, those dialogues.
Yeah, powerful.
And people say it's really informative, too, about the legal stuff that survivors have to deal with.
Right, the obstacles.
The obstacles.
And there's this theme of hope that comes up a lot.
Hope, yeah.
And just never giving up.
Perseverance.
Perseverance.
Yeah.
But not everyone loved everything.
Right.
Some found the writing.
Yeah.
Not quite even all the way through.
Okay.
Or they didn't get the parts with her younger selves.
Right.
It just didn't click.
The allegorical bits.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's different for different people.
Of course.
And the audiobook, I should mention.
Yeah.
People really liked it.
Oh, yeah.
Especially the epilogue.
Okay.
Which Amanda reads herself.
Oh, wow.
They said it was really moving.
That makes sense.
So thinking about how many people might read this.
Yeah.
Some reviewers thought it would sell well.
Okay.
Because of Amanda's activism.
Right.
Her NASA background.
But one reviewer, they wondered if it would really stick around.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
Compared to some of the other famous survivor memoirs.
Right.
So that's an interesting thing to think about.
Definitely.
But let's look at what Amanda herself has said.
Okay.
About why she wrote the book.
Yeah.
Her perspective.
Right.
She's been open about it.
Yeah.
And in an interview, she talked about writing this memoir as part of her healing.
She said, let her, quote, thoroughly process my trauma, make sense of it, grieve it, and now graduate from it.
Wow.
So like getting closure through writing.
Closure.
Yeah.
It seems like that was a big motivator.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And she learned something too.
Okay.
She said, our younger selves have a distinct voice and a lot of wisdom to share.
Wow.
I like that.
Like by talking to those younger versions of herself.
Right.
She understood more.
Yeah.
It helped her heal.
And how does she feel now after writing it all?
She says she feels different.
Yeah.
Braver.
Braver.
Okay.
Because she faced those memories.
Right.
You know?
Yeah.
The document she had hidden away.
Yeah.
Facing her past, it made her stronger.
That's powerful.
There's this quote from one interview.
Yeah.
I love this.
Okay.
She just describes her book and she says, one serving of hope, please.
Oh, wow.
I mean, that really sums it up.
It does.
It really does.
The feeling she wants people to have.
Yeah.
After reading it.
Yeah.
So, listener.
Yeah.
Everyone comes to a book like this with their own experiences.
Of course.
Right.
Yeah.
So, what could be helpful for those who pick up Saving Five?
Well, like you said, everyone's different.
Yeah.
But some people have said it's helpful for understanding the problems with the justice system when it comes to sexual assault.
Right.
Like Amanda's fight for that act.
Yeah.
It shows those hurdles.
Yeah.
It really does.
It's a systemic hurdle.
Yeah.
It's eye-opening.
And for others, it could be a way to look at their own healing through those ideas of resilience and being kind to yourself.
Self-compassion.
Self-compassion.
Yeah.
Especially through how she talks to her past selves.
Right.
So many layers to this book.
So many layers, yeah.
So, if this deep dive has made you curious and you want to really get into Amanda Nguyen's story and how she tells it, I'd say go get Saving Five.
A memoir of hope.
Yeah, check it out.
It's out now.
It's available everywhere.
Everywhere.
Yeah.
So, to wrap up our deep dive today, Saving Five, it's a memoir that's brave.
It connects this really personal story of trauma with how she created change with the Sexual Assault Survivors Rights Act.
That's huge.
It is.
And it also shows us this complex and kind of new way to heal by talking to your younger self.
Powerful stuff.
It's a really, really powerful testament to how strong humans can be and how important it is to fight for justice.
Absolutely.
For yourself and for everyone.
For yourself and for others.
So, on that note, I'll leave you with this.
Okay.
Amanda's story shows us that.
That these really personal struggles.
Yeah.
They can be the start of big change.
Right.
They can spark movements.
They can.
Yeah.
So what are those issues for you?
Yeah, that's the question.
You know, where where your own experiences could make a difference.
What resonates with you?
For you and and maybe for other people, too.
A great question to think about.
It is.
Yeah.
Thank you for for being with us on this deep dive.
Yes.
I hope it I hope it gave you some things to think about.
Absolutely.
We'll see you next time.
See you later.
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