Reviews - The Cancer Journals

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The Cancer Journals by Tracy K. Smith, Audre Lorde

533 reviews for:

Audre Lorde is such a gift. To write through her battling with cancer, and her own mortality, in the 1970s when mastectomy was even more stigmatized than it is in 2024 is phenomenal. Her worldview is incredibly empowered and convincing. I loved the utopic image she has of an army of one-breasted women (à la Dahomey Amazons) descending on D.C. to demand cancer research and prevention, and how she believes the profit economy and sexist emphasis on prostheses are obstructing that dream. She was and is the ultimate champion of “woman love” — ever grateful for her words.

jordanm13's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring fast-paced

Beautifully written. As a breast cancer thriver in the middle of it all this book and her story are powerful to me.

bookwrm526's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional

n0r_rie's review against another edition

4.5

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

This is my first full book by Audre Lorde, and I fell in love with her here.

This is a collection of diary entries and essays. While I loved it, it does read as such.

My little editing self wishes the essays had been mildly edited to avoid addressing the same aspects of the same topics the same ways the other essays did, but with each essay Lorde takes those aspects and builds off of them in interesting new directions.

Lorde is beyond deservedly foundational to disability, feminist, and queer literature.