Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson's novel Target tells the life of a sixteen-year-old boy named Grady West. Grady was your typical sixteen-year-old in high school who hung out with a group of friends, very outgoing and nice. But everything changed on a tragic, uneventful November night. While walking home Grady was attacked, beaten and raped. From that precise moment Grady's life changed. He would no longer become the Grady he once was to his friends, family, and even himself. Grady tried to escape his friends, his old school, and what happened that night. But every now and then memories come back. A year later, he was now attending Thomas Jefferson High where no one would know who he was or what happened to him. His journey to his new school is put to the test. He meets an African-American student named Jess, who quickly becomes his friend and tries to help him come out of his shell. He is haunted daily by the events of his rape. Along the way he meets and befriends other classmates like Pearl and Fred. As time passes Grady finds ways to mention his rape to his new friends as well as his old friends. In all this they help him feel better. Throughout the novel Grady asked questions that night. He wonders what made him the target of those two men to rape him. He would wonder if the men noticed the word “target” on his back and if that was why they had chosen him. He felt like his whole life was a target and why this happened to him. There were many actions where he found himself a target for others. One incident occurred when he was very young and his neighbor, Mr. Howell, had sexually assaulted him. He wonders if that was the beginning of what was to come. Or when a boy named Trevor had something like... half a sheet of paper... or a pencil. The novel mentions the numerous double standards involving men and women who are victims of sexual assault. Grady was stripped of his masculinity when he was raped. The two men called him all kinds of names such as "sissy", "a girl", "queer" and other names. Grady wonders why people thought that because he was male, he should be able to fight those men because men are known as fighters, it's embedded in their DNA and that's why men have testosterone. In Grady's mind, in the same position he was in, if it had been a girl they wouldn't have been expected to react. In the case of rape the novel mentions that “men were not supposed to rape men. “They did it to women.” Many are unfamiliar with the thought that men can also be raped or sexually assaulted and the reasoning behind this is that, in cases involving victimization, men are less likely to report it.