Small towns have long memories and very short tempers when their heroes are threatened. In Aaron Hartzler's 2015 novel, What We Saw, we aren't just reading a piece of YA fiction; we're looking into a mirror of a real-world tragedy. The book is heavily, and quite uncomfortably, inspired by the 2012 Steubenville, Ohio rape case. If you remember that news cycle, you remember the "cold fury" it sparked.
Hartzler doesn't pull his punches.
He sets the story in Coral Sands, Iowa. It’s the kind of place where high school basketball isn't just a sport—it's the local religion. When you have a town that knows the jersey numbers of the varsity team better than the names of their own local politicians, you have a recipe for a specific kind of blindness. This is the environment Kate Weston lives in. She’s an athlete herself, a soccer player, and she’s just started dating Ben Cody, a star on the basketball team. Everything feels like a typical teenage summer until the morning after John Doone’s party.
What Really Happened in What We Saw
The plot kicks off with a blur. Literally. Kate wakes up with a massive hangover and a few gaps in her memory. But as the fog clears, a picture starts circulating online. It’s a photo of Stacey Stallard, another student, passed out and topless, draped over the shoulder of a boy named Deacon Mills.
Soon, the rumors turn into arrests.
Four members of the basketball team are accused of sexually assaulting Stacey while she was unconscious. This is where Hartzler’s expertise as a storyteller shines—he doesn't just focus on the crime. He focuses on the reaction. The town doesn't rally around the victim. Instead, they "circle the wagons" around the boys. You see the classic, sickening hallmarks of victim-blaming. People call Stacey a "whore" and a "slut." They claim she was "asking for it" because of what she wore or how much she drank.
Kate is caught in the middle. Ben, her boyfriend, is teammates and friends with the accused. The pressure to stay quiet is immense. Honestly, it’s a razor-thin line Kate has to walk. Does she stay loyal to her social circle, or does she listen to that nagging feeling in her gut that something is deeply, fundamentally wrong?
The Steubenville Connection
You can't talk about What We Saw without talking about Steubenville. Hartzler has been open about the fact that the 2012 case was his primary inspiration. In that real-life horror, two high school football players were convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl. The case became a national flashpoint because of how the community defended the "promising young men" while dragging the victim through the mud.
What We Saw captures that specific "win-at-all-costs" culture. In Coral Sands, the basketball players are treated like they're untouchable. When the police show up at school, the shock isn't that a crime happened—it's that the "heroes" are being treated like criminals.
Hartzler uses the 140-character limit of (then) Twitter to show how bullying happens in real-time. It’s fast. It’s brutal. And it’s permanent. One text, one photo, one tweet—and a person's life is dismantled before they even wake up from a blackout.
Why This Book Still Matters Today
It's been over a decade since the events that inspired the book, and nearly as long since the book itself was published. Yet, the themes of consent and "rape culture" haven't aged a day. We still see these patterns in the news. We still see the "boys will be boys" defense used to excuse the inexcusable.
What most people get wrong about What We Saw is thinking it's just a "girl vs. boys" story. It’s actually more about the bystanders. It's about the people who weren't in the room where the assault happened but saw the photos. It's about the people who heard the jokes and didn't say anything. Hartzler is basically asking: If you saw it and stayed silent, are you also responsible?
The character of Ben Cody is particularly nuanced here. He isn't a monster. He’s "one of the good ones." He helps Kate get home safely the night of the party. But even he is swayed by the town’s narrative. He wants to protect his friends. He wants his basketball scholarship. He represents the "good guy" who struggles to admit that his friends are capable of something evil.
Actionable Insights for Readers and Parents
If you're picking up this book or discussing it with a teenager, here is how to approach the heavy themes without getting lost in the darkness:
- Focus on the "Grey Areas": Talk about the fact that "not saying no" isn't the same as saying "yes." Use Kate’s internal monologue as a jumping-off point for what it means to be an active bystander.
- Audit Digital Footprints: The book shows how digital evidence—photos and videos—can be used both as a weapon against a victim and as the only way to find the truth. It’s a stark reminder that "deleted" doesn't mean gone.
- Challenge the "Hero" Narrative: Look at how the town's obsession with sports performance blinded them to the players' characters. It’s a vital lesson in not letting talent or status excuse behavior.
- Discuss Consent Honestly: Move past the "no means no" mantra and talk about the nuances of intoxication and the inability to give consent while unconscious.
What We Saw by Aaron Hartzler doesn't offer a clean, happy ending. It's messy. It's frustrating. The resolution feels rushed to some, but perhaps that’s because in real life, these cases rarely end with a neat bow. The scars remain long after the trial is over.
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If you're looking for a way to start a conversation about consent, power dynamics, and the courage it takes to speak up when everyone else is shouting you down, this is the text to use. It’s not just a story about what happened at a party. It’s a story about the choices we make when the lights go up and we have to face what we saw.
To get the most out of this narrative, compare the fictional events in Coral Sands to the actual court transcripts of the Steubenville case. Noticing the parallels in how the media and the public reacted then versus how we react now can provide a sobering look at how much—or how little—social attitudes have actually shifted.