Linda Radtke
From the first glimpse of the vibrant cover of “What If It Wasn’t My Fault” with an illustration of a young woman facing away from the viewer, many readers will guess the subject matter of Katy Farber’s newest young adult book (Rootstock Publishing, 2026). Maybe I’m wrong, but I bet many women will recognize a familiar world: a bad date, a friend’s confession, silence and shame, humiliation and self-loathing.
The central event in 17-year-old Indie Watson’s strong and capable life happens the Saturday night she attends a party with a boy she likes and gets drunk. Memories after that are fuzzy, but later her body tells the truth: the ache in her pelvis, bruises, and psychological shock. Indie’s journey begins with her struggling in silence as she confronts that the little girl in her has vanished forever. She mourns the loss of the successful student, soccer athlete, responsible family member, and retreats into silence.
Farber paints the confusing feelings about rape that a victim might feel, the shame and guilt, the inward-turning anger. Indie recognizes how much she enjoyed the attention of boys when her body started changing. She explored “how to get a boy to like you” and was thrilled with the attention of “Boy X” and finally getting a date to that party. Then, afterward, she faces the gossip, name-calling, the boys’ laughter.
Although friends, teachers, and family members reach out, she remains silent until finally confiding in her best friend, Amelia. Events snowball after that: she reports the rape and is no longer able to hide. Author Katy Farber’s portrait of this is nuanced and honest. Her main character comes to the realization that the wider world, run by men, begins early and is nurtured in adolescence. Indie confronts the image of women in the media, the resistance to justice by the men in charge, and the forces that allowed her attacker and others to excuse and ignore.
But the story never seems preachy or separated from the story of this one young victim.
Indie is a character who stays with the reader. We learn of the challenges of her family life, and follow her struggle to be the responsible one, the “glue” keeping the family together. Indie’s parents have flaws but are not portrayed as unloving. There are well-meaning adults in the book. They seem familiar in their good intentions and their ineptitude.
I commend Katy Farber for causing us to consider an all-too-common crime in all its facets. Indie’s struggle and eventual healing begins when she tells her story rather than hiding in silence and shame. And for us, although what happens to Indie is familiar, we travel along with one young woman as she learns and grows and bravely tells her story.
