Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt

11 reviews

anaheeta's review against another edition

emotional inspiring sad tense fast-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mass/school shootings, Suicide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Violence, Racism, Murder, Transphobia, Sexual harassment, Hate crime, and Colonisation

spookyaz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Sexual content, Homophobia, Genocide, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Murder, Hate crime, Suicide, Police brutality, and Racism

jessie_h's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

This is one of those essay collections that I will stick be thinking about for a while. There is a lot in this collection to unpack and it was so beautifully written. Belcourt leans on his poetic background to tell parts of his story via essays and poems which results in an emotional sucker punch of a memoir. He touches on topics like queerness, indigeneity, sexuality, queer/NDN joy and hope, and colonialism and does so with a vulnerability and honesty. I want to read more from this author in the future.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Homophobia, Suicide, Racism, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Grief, Sexual content, and Cultural appropriation

Minor: Violence, Hate crime, Gun violence, Murder, and Genocide

readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Racism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Homophobia, Mental illness, Medical content, Grief, Death, Hate crime, Genocide, Colonisation, Gun violence, Murder, Blood, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, Violence, Suicide attempt, and Police brutality

Minor: Infidelity, Rape, and Transphobia

strrygo's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.75

eviscerated 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Racism, Homophobia, and Hate crime

moranguinhos's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Transphobia, Colonisation, Gun violence, Murder, Police brutality, Homophobia, Grief, Hate crime, Racism, and Suicide

robotswithpersonality's review against another edition

challenging hopeful

A galvanizing series of essays that blur the line between memoir and think piece. The author is palpably a poet, in that I struggled to adapt to his gorgeously complex phrasing, but found it all the more affecting and informative for not coddling the reader. 
It is heartening to see Belcourt push towards a future of creative joy, while consistently elucidating all the ways in which the Canada of the past and present hampers the possibility of such a life experience for Indigenous people. 
Discussions of life as a queer man of colour likewise indicates the striving for love and the social and structural impediments to finding it. 
It is enjoyable to see a writer frequently touch on a sentence or two written by others, you get this sense of collaborative inspiration, of sharing ideas, when otherwise I worry that writing is isolating, in the search for a 'pure' inspiration not to be intermingled with words that might be claimed by another.
I think it's because I usually see it in research/journalistic non-fiction, seeing citation/quotes in a memoir provides hope of a full life,  reading and discussion between fellow writers. 
As with other non-fiction personal works written by Black, Indigenous and people of colour I have encountered as a white reader, I am reminded that reading alone will not suffice. Action must be taken, so that the liveable future so many minorities have long been fighting for and creating art to encourage into existence may become a reality, via the restructure of systems, (as well as hearts and minds), long incapable and seemingly uncaring, of meeting all citizens' needs. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, Hate crime, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

wetdirtreads's review

emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Mass/school shootings, Gun violence, Racism, Hate crime, Homophobia, and Suicide

Moderate: Eating disorder, Medical trauma, Police brutality, and Transphobia

lizlikesfrogs's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Genocide, Homophobia, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, Hate crime, and Colonisation

pawpaw's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

To call Belcourt's memoir "inspiring" or "emotional" feels like an insult; the level of his writing is indescribably rich, refreshing, complex, and needed. I would quote some of his most poignant lines, but that'd ruin the experience of coming across them naturally. 

Don't get me wrong: sometimes I rolled my eyes because of how much he used the word "ontological," and he can come off as pretentious, but so be it. With everything that he's been forced to deal with, with everything he's achieved? He's allowed to come off as a bit arrogant at times.

If you're triggered by suicide, sexual assault, murder, and the institutionalized destruction of Indigenous peoples, please tread carefully. That being said, this book is vital, and well beyond worth it. 

Please remember that there are many other Indigenous and queer voices. If you choose to listen to this one, don't stop there. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Suicide, Sexual content, Colonisation, Suicidal thoughts, Hate crime, and Genocide

Moderate: Homophobia, Sexism, Racism, Murder, Cursing, and Grief

Minor: Sexual assault