Reviews tagging 'Grief'

A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt

14 reviews

tenderbench's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative relaxing tense medium-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Sexual content, Colonisation, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, and Gun violence

maggiefae's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Grief, Homophobia, Mass/school shootings, Racism, Sexual content, Suicide, Transphobia, Colonisation, and Violence

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.

---

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

---

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

ecn's review against another edition

Beautifully written and extremely flowery with such emotion and depth. I would have loved to listen to an audiobook version bc of this. The writing made it hard to follow at time because it was so flowery/intense but overall really wonderful 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Toxic relationship, Colonisation, Grief, Genocide, and Violence

balfies's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

This lyrical, intricate memoir of queer Cree resistance made me weep. It also made me want to write poetry again.

Belcourt uses language to charter unnavigable oceans of queer and NDN experience within a capitalist white supremacist heteropatriarchy. 

Feel like I'm a bug on a forest floor with my mouth open in nutrient rich dirt, there's so much going on in this. If you're a fan of Ocean Vuong or Ellen van Neerven this is a must.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Colonisation, Violence, Sexual content, Suicide, Racism, Murder, Grief, and Homophobia

moranguinhos's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

---

Content Warnings

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

h0llyr00th's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

Dark but beautiful. Ruminations on existing as NDN, as queer, as other in what's known as Canada. Every content warning.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Racism, Suicide, and Grief

williamgideon's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective tense

4.5

It's taken me a while to be able to articulate my thoughts on this book. It's so unlike anything I've ever read, so unique in its form and subject matter. This book definitely is a lot to digest, despite only being 128 pages it took me 8 days to read. It is challenging, both in the subjects it deals with but also the way it is written.
This book deeply touched me, and there are passages that made me cry. Some of the essays are worthy of 5 stars, but others didn't hit as hard. My favorites were 'Please keep loving: Reflections on unlivability', 'Robert' and 'To hang our grief up to dry'.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Genocide, Suicide, Racism, Suicide attempt, Grief, and Murder

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. 

---

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