Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt

8 reviews

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

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

becksusername's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

4.0

This book was anything but simple. Belcourt is obviously a poet, and in these essays makes many hard-hitting points about life as an indigenous queer person in Canada with lots of big words I had to look up, startling metaphors, and round-about storytelling. It was a lot to process and there were many quotes I wrote down to think about more. Even so, I'm sure a lot of his meaning will have gone over my head.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Racism, Police brutality, Suicide, Sexual content, Medical trauma, and Mass/school shootings

vigil's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.75

this is a very personal book, deeply entrenched in his own experience that makes it difficult to rate.

billy-ray belcourt has a very strong and specific command of language, (in a way that likely intentional, judging by a later entry) that is enticing but also difficult to comprehend due its strong roots in academia. he has a very immersive writing style that transports you directly into his brain, for better or for worse. 

for personal enjoyment, it’s a 3 star, but i respect the author and what he’s doing with this collection that i bumped it up to a 4.75.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, Genocide, Medical content, Medical trauma, Police brutality, Racism, Violence, Death, Grief, Homophobia, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Transphobia

marabdelmageed's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Truly one of the best pieces of work I have ever read. I will reread this, and then reread it again -- I know that I still have so much to gain, so much to learn, so much to appreciate from this work.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Fatphobia, Medical trauma, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Homophobia, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, and Suicide

offbrandclubsoda's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

2.75

I am hesitant to assign a number value to this book or even to leave a review, because I suspect that my experience is more reflective of my reading level than the actual quality of the book. I found the prose challenging and had to reread some passages several times but still couldn’t grasp the meaning. Nonetheless, the book was beautiful and lovely at times and very painful at others, and, as a Queer, disabled person, I am glad I read it. I found that listening to the audiobook helped me follow a bit better. One of my favourite quotes from the book:

“if I try to compose anything but sad poems, I fear it’ll be akin to a widower trying to convince others that he has found happiness again by wearing a T-shirt that says HAPPINESS” (p. 94)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation and Racism

Moderate: Genocide, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Infidelity and Medical trauma

sarahfa's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Genocide

Minor: Medical trauma and Suicide

Dense, some beautiful sentences