The Lasting Harm

Aged 15 and preparing for her second Gymnastics World Championship, Lucia Osborne-Crowley was violently raped on a night out. The injuries she sustained ended her gymnastics career, and eventually manifested in chronic illness, which medical professionals now believe can be caused by untreated trauma. Her path to healing began a decade later when she shared her secret for the very first time. Finding solace in writers like Elena Ferrante and Rupi Kaur, she learned how to express her suffering and began to rediscover vulnerability and resilience in the face of a formerly unbearable trauma. Her investigations reveal profound societal failures--of law, justice, education, and medicine--and suggest only empathy can break the cycle of sexual violence. Eloquent, defiant, and honest, I Choose Elena is the story of how a young woman reclaimed her body.

WINNER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARDWINNER OF THE DAVITT AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE DOUGLAS STEWART PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 NED KELLY AWARD FOR BEST TRUE CRIMELONGLISTED FOR THE WALKLEY BOOK AWARDLONGLISTED FOR THE NIB LITERARY AWARD'THE BEST BOOK ON EPSTEIN' OBSERVER'I understand - and sympathise with - the feeling you might have that you already know the Jeffrey Epstein story. But I am not here to tell you a story about Jeffrey Epstein, or even Ghislaine Maxwell. I am here to tell you the stories of ten women, many of whom have never spoken at length before, about the real impact of sexual trauma on their lives'In November 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five counts of sex-trafficking of minors, and now faces twenty years in prison for the role she played in Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of four girls. The trial was meticulously covered by journalist and legal reporter Lucia Osborne-Crowley, one of the only reporters allowed into the courtroom every day.The Lasting Harm is her account of that trial, a gripping true crime drama and a blistering critique of a criminal justice system ill-equipped to deliver justice for abuse survivors, no matter the outcome.Giving voice to four women and their testimonies, and supplemented by exclusive interviews, The Lasting Harm brings this incendiary trial to life, questions our age-old appetite for crime and punishment and offers a new blueprint for meaningful reparative justice.