In the juvenile fiction novel Wrecked, Maria Padian portrays a timely narrative about sexual assault on college campuses. Her careful treatment of this subject earned the text several awards, including the Fall 2016 Kids’ Indie Next Pick, the Maine Lupine Honor Award, and the Maine Literary Award. Originally published in hardcover in 2017 by Algonquin Young Readers, Wrecked also received positive recognition from Booklist, Book Riot, Kirkus Reviews, and the School Library Journal, among others.

Plot Summary

Wrecked opens on Haley, a college freshman, who has just experienced her third concussion playing soccer and is reeling with the knowledge that she has probably ended her career as an athlete. As she wrestles with what this means, she discovers that her roommate, the quiet Jenny, was raped a party. When Jenny chooses Haley to be her advisor over the course of the investigation, Haley reluctantly agrees to support her.

As the college dean begins investigating, Haley meets Richard, who has just broken up with an older student, Carrie, who was Jenny’s victim support advocate. Without knowing it, Haley and Richard spark a relationship with many strings attached: not only is Haley Jenny’s advisor, but Richard is asked to be the advisor to the perpetrator of the rape, Jordan, since Richard is one of two people to whom Jordan confided in about having sex with Jenny.

Through the developing romance between Richard and Haley, the conflict of the novel becomes clear: it is both impossible to prove one side of the story, and, as the investigation continues, the social consequences become more intense for all involved. When someone begins posting nasty commentary about Jenny on an online social platform, Richard and Haley approach the problem more as a team, trying to figure out how to help resolve the case. Meanwhile, the dean interviews both Jordan and Jenny; where Jenny is revealing and as honest as possible, Jordan is reticent and refuses to share any information.

When Jenny’s testimony reveals that she was too intoxicated to fully report what happened accurately, the dean wrestles with how to get to the truth of the story. It is only after Richard and Haley try to prove that there is another student, Brandon Exley, involved, that Richard confides to the dean that Jordan admitted to having sex with Jenny. Armed with this information and the knowledge that the college is not likely to expel Jordan, the dean makes an important play and gets both Jordan and Brandon Exley to withdraw.

As the case concludes, and the entire campus engages in a day of learning about consent, Haley drags Richard onstage at the assembly they attend, and they become a more popular couple. Haley also pushes Richard to share his information with Jenny, who is devastated over the lack of consequences for her rapist; the novel concludes with both Haley and Richard feeling that they have acted with as much integrity as possible despite the situation. In the closing scene, Richard and Haley demonstrate their own new understandings of consent as they kiss.