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4.49 AVERAGE
4.49 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
It’s not often I read literature that changes my entire perspective on life and my experience as a Black Disabled woman. But man, this little book has gotten me through this last year like a comforting hug from a loved one.
Audre Lorde speaks so eloquently about her experience as a Black Queer woman while experiencing the effects of breast cancer and mastectomy. The way she creates the correlation between her lived experience and that of other Black women with similar stories. She showcases the need for women in their darkest moments to have community and the effects of community on the healing of the patient. Her ability to identify and highlight the issue of breast cancer survivors somehow losing their “femininity” while pointing out the lack of funding and care for those very same bodies is potent. Overall this is a read I would suggest to cancer patients, Disabled folks, friends, any and everyone really. This is a story that chips away at what it means to be human in this world. She leaves us with words of encouragement and a moment to reset our thoughts and ideas of self.
I’ve always held a special place in my heart for folks such as Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Nikki Giovanni, and this book will be set along side the greats as well.
Don’t think about it, just read it.✨
Audre Lorde speaks so eloquently about her experience as a Black Queer woman while experiencing the effects of breast cancer and mastectomy. The way she creates the correlation between her lived experience and that of other Black women with similar stories. She showcases the need for women in their darkest moments to have community and the effects of community on the healing of the patient. Her ability to identify and highlight the issue of breast cancer survivors somehow losing their “femininity” while pointing out the lack of funding and care for those very same bodies is potent. Overall this is a read I would suggest to cancer patients, Disabled folks, friends, any and everyone really. This is a story that chips away at what it means to be human in this world. She leaves us with words of encouragement and a moment to reset our thoughts and ideas of self.
I’ve always held a special place in my heart for folks such as Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Nikki Giovanni, and this book will be set along side the greats as well.
Don’t think about it, just read it.✨
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Raw, truthful, and eloquently written. Her words speak of things taboo in society, the world of breast cancer/mastectomies, and perceptions of women/femininity.
really very moving …. not sure that i can comment on it from a non CWL 315: Literature And Medicine perspective until after class so i will write something better later!
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it's later & i'm writing this review instead of writing my discussion post about this!
this was quite nice to read. i didn't realize how mixed media or whatever the format was because it just felt like a look into lorde's mind (& i kind of think the same way -- in journal entries, in nonlinear thought processes, and in the kind of Looking-Back-On-This-Experience way). i feel like cancer has been one of the ideas that i've been desensitized to just because of how many people around me have been touched by it (which is a horrible, horrible thing) and it was just eye opening to read about lorde's experience in such an honest and open way.
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it's later & i'm writing this review instead of writing my discussion post about this!
this was quite nice to read. i didn't realize how mixed media or whatever the format was because it just felt like a look into lorde's mind (& i kind of think the same way -- in journal entries, in nonlinear thought processes, and in the kind of Looking-Back-On-This-Experience way). i feel like cancer has been one of the ideas that i've been desensitized to just because of how many people around me have been touched by it (which is a horrible, horrible thing) and it was just eye opening to read about lorde's experience in such an honest and open way.
challenging
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
The Cancer Journals is a powerful exposition written partly as journal entry and partly memoir. It is the gritty and real experience of Audre Lorde’s personal experience coping with breast cancer, a radical mastectomy, and the political climate she lived in. It takes the silence around illness and the even greater silence around women’s pain and pours it onto the pages. She writes as a black woman, a lesbian, a mother. She is a warrior and a poet. She uses her words to heal herself.
Having read this book so late, when nearly everyone has heard of Audre Lorde and knows of her courage in the face of adversary, it seems trite to repeat the same platitudes. But it so hard not to say that the writing is powerful because it is so personal. It is empowering because it is truth through the eyes of the writer and hits home in the hearts of so many that read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Medical content, Medical trauma
Moderate: Body shaming, Misogyny, Sexism
Minor: Ableism, Domestic abuse, Racism
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced