See What You Made Me Do

Power, Control and Domestic Abuse

By: Jess Hill

Narrated by: Jess Hill

Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

At the office of Safe Steps, Victoria's dedicated 24/7 family violence response call centre, phone counsellors receive a call every three minutes. Many women are repeat callers - on average, they will go back to an abusive partner eight times before leaving for good. 'You must get so frustrated when you think a woman's ready to leave and then she decides to go back,' I say. 'No,' replies one phone counsellor, pointedly. 'I'm frustrated that even though he promised to stop, he chose to abuse her again.'

Domestic abuse is a national emergency: one in four Australian women has experienced violence from a man she was intimate with. But too often we ask the wrong question: why didn’t she leave? We should be asking: why did he do it?

Investigative journalist Jess Hill puts perpetrators - and the systems that enable them - in the spotlight. See What You Made Me Do is a deep dive into the abuse so many women and children experience - abuse that is often reinforced by the justice system they trust to protect them. Critically, it shows that we can drastically reduce domestic violence - not in generations to come, but today.

Combining forensic research with riveting story-telling, See What You Made Me Do radically rethinks how to confront the national crisis of fear and abuse in our homes.

Winner of the 2020 Stella Prize.

©2019 Jess Hill (P)2019 Audible Australia Pty Ltd

Critic reviews

"A shattering book: clear-headed and meticulous, driving always at the truth." (Helen Garner)

"One Australian a week is dying as a result of domestic abuse. If that was terrorism, we’d have armed guards on every corner." (Jimmy Barnes)

"Confronting in its honesty this book challenges you to keep reading no matter how uncomfortable it is to face the profound rawness of people’s stories. Such a well written book and so well researched. See What You Made Me Do sheds new light on this complex issue that affects so many of us." (Rosie Batty)

Amazing insight into DV & coercive control

I could not stop listening!!!! This book had me laugh, made me angry at the injustice of the system, made me cry at the pure tragedy of lives lost that could have been prevented but it has taught me soooo much and ignited a passion to support the woman who make it out and to the other side. Jess, thank you for your contribution to this extremely important area. So glad I heard you interviewed on the science of psychotherapy podcast!!

A fascinating read

The author showed great empathy for many women and children and the early chapters are moving and well researched.
In the final two chapters the author veers off into PC rhetoric and displays unhelpful political bias.
Overall it was a pleasure to listen to.

Courage to Write, Courage to Read

One of the heaviest books I’ve read, I normally breeze through books of all kinds but this really addresses the heart of domestic abuse and asks that you don’t look away. A confronting and important read. Props to Jess Hill for her strength to deliver this book with the voices of victims ringing loud and clear and to the victims for sharing their story.