Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - A History of My Brief Body

Belcourt's writing is so beautiful & precise & eloquent. I felt & learnt a lot about his experiences as an NDN queer man.
I wrote down so many quotes because the writing is so beautiful. Learning about the specifics of Canadian colonialism (and thinking about how that compares to Australian colonialism), being in a body the state wants consumed. But also so much content on loneliness and queerness in a broader sense of community, collectivity and vulnerability as well, and how that intersects and interacts with his NDNness.

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cantfindmybookmark's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective

4.25

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spinesinaline's review against another edition

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challenging reflective medium-paced

3.75

I'd like to reread this one to fully grasp all that the author is offering. This is presented as a mix of poetry and prose in a very loose memoir style. I’m looking forward to reading more by Belcourt across his multiple genres.

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caidyn's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful medium-paced

4.5

Ugh, what a great book. I loved the essays and how they showed the queer, NDN experience. At times it was sad, and others hopeful. But it was beautifully aching in its prose.

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littlecat's review against another edition

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dark reflective

2.0

The rating is much more about my reading expierince of this book then a value of it cause the prose was the kind of dense style that I had a hard time reading, there are concepts I encountered already ( “Books of the sort I want to write are banned, for they are against the world that birthed the writer.”) that I like tried to mental hold onto to understand the book but - it felt too unfocused for it to work for me, the constant quoting of others just made me want to read someone else and the general bleak tone (which he of course is entitled to! just wasnt for me).

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sammies_shelf's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

4.75

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becksusername's review against another edition

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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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