Can Julia be blamed for what happens to her? Should she have handled it differently?

Marc's teenage daughter, Julia, finds herself in a morally ambiguous situation. Can she be blamed for what happens to her? Should she have handled it differently?

I do not believe that Julia can be blamed. She is young and innocent. Her parents are clueless. Her parents and Caroline in particular should have protected her. The whole premise of going to the summer house is preposterous.

Absolutely not. She is a child. Rough learning curve, but handled correctly she can get through this and learn from the situation rather than let the situation rob her of her soul.

Even though she had a deceitful plan, she was young, naive, and adventurous. She wasn't aware of the consequences. The Summer House was filled with immature adults that fostered seductive behavior.

She should have been honest but she didn't want to reveal her part in what happened. Normal behavior for a teen.

No way! Julia was just a kid - plus, she had terrible adult role models (eg; everyone at the summer house). I do wish she had handled things differently - specifically, naming her rapist. I understand, though, that she is a confused girl who just experienced a traumatic event. No one should judge her for how she chose to handle the situation ... but we can judge her parents. How about contacting the police? Getting a therapist for their daughter? Anything?

I agree with most everyone else. Julia is barely a teenager with the common sense of that age. If either of her parents had a clue about their job as parents they would have controlled her whereabouts a whole lot better. First of all their even staying at that house with the type of behavior that was going on was stupid, then to allow the girl so much freedom in that sort of environment in a summer beach community was total abdication of their obligation to protect her. Marc especially was there to ogle the wife and attach himself to Ralph and that was his plan from the beginning and his daughters were just spare baggage that made him look legit. Unfortunately Julia paid the price for his status seeking and wayward thoughts.

She has some culpability in what occurred but she was young and naive. She should have checked in with her father before leaving with Alex. Perhaps if she had, Marc would have told her "no". Alex also let her down by getting mad and leaving her there. Plenty of blame to go around.

Absolutely not! This is a perfect example of sexualizing our children, i.e. Wet tshirt parade and then blaming the child (mostly daughters) when they are confronted with sexual predators.

Did I read correctly that Ralph was walking around sans swim trunks???!! Am I missing some cultural Danish custom????

I was surprised about how blase Julia's parents were during the summer house stay. They seemed to have no worries about anything that might happen.

The wet-tshirt episode shocked me. The adults were unmoved.

While Julia could have handled several situations differently, I don't think she had the innate wisdom to do that--and her parents were no help at all. So I blame Julia somewhat, but her parents overwhelmingly.

The book made me appreciate my relatively uncomplicated life!

I don't honestly know what happened to Julia...was she raped by the repairman? I mean, everyone in the book seemed to accept some ridiculously young girl as an adult, capable of major decisions...and yet, this happens, and she's cloistered as an infant. Poor Julia was no more in control of her life than a fish in a tank. Her parents should have aided her, guided her, and not let her go off with boys...alone...on the beach...to bars, no?

I can't add anything to the excellent comments that have been previously made. The whole incident/event should never have happened.

Of course not, she was 13! But the adults should have been more aware of what might happen. There was a lot of physical contact between Julia and Alex around the pool, when they had very little clothing on. Hormones, people! That never seemed to bother the parents. And I guess the Dutch, like many Europeans, are less reserved about exposing their bodies.

Julia is definitely not to blame in this situation. First, we don't know the real story of what happened to her on the beach. We only know one story and that is the one that Ralph tells on his death bed. Other than that there are no facts to go by. Second, Julia is still a child and not capable of giving consent to have sex. She has had poor role models in her parents and all of the other adults she is exposed to over the summer. I can't believe the parents thought that the wet-t-shirt contests with their young girls was acceptable behavior. All of the adults are to blame and her parents most of all.

Following on to most of the precedeing comments I find that Julia is neither morally nor legally responsible for the events on the beach. A competent adult male (presumably) had sexual intercourse with a minor. End of story. Based upon the descriptions of Julia's appearance and her seductive behavior toward Alex we might assume that Julia came on to the nameless repairman. And based upon the description of the repairman's appearance and that of his girlfriend working at the rental car agency we also might assume that the repairman had low self esteem which would make him particularly susceptible to Julia's advances. But all of that is of no consequence. The repairman is the rapist, and Julia is the victim.

As to whether Julia should have handled herself differently the answer is "of course". But control and self restraint in matters of sexuality were certainly not the orders of the day at the summer house with swimming pool. Generally speaking the adults knew no boundaries, and it would have been a heavy burden for Julia, a pubescent child, to follow a code of conduct more limiting than that followed by her "role models".

Poor Julia, she is a child - 13 y/o who doesn't have good role models or support for her decisions. We can't expect a 13 year old girl to deal with these adult issues effectively.

No, Julia was young and innocent. If the whole situation is handled the right way, it can be a great learning.tool.

No, Julia was only 13. Hormones are raging at that age. Her parents seemed clueless about what might happen. A child at that age needs better supervision than what she had.