Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Ordinary Girls: A Memoir by Jaquira Diaz

13 reviews

lidiaaa222's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Mental illness, Self harm, Emotional abuse, Drug use, Domestic abuse, Death, Child abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Adult/minor relationship, Addiction, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Lesbophobia, Drug abuse, Cursing, Transphobia, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Sexual violence, Sexual content, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Vomit, Racial slurs, Blood, Toxic friendship, Sexism, Racism, Xenophobia, Misogyny, Homophobia, Classism, Grief, Outing, Bullying, and Infidelity

leweylibrary's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective tense medium-paced

4.75

Sometimes when I read books like this, I can't stop thinking how absolutely wild it is that people seriously have lives like this. It's crazy how much one person can go through and do in their lives. The 1/4 star off isn't anything to do with the content of the story, just my perception of the author's voice which didn't always grab me despite the intense subject matter. I'm super plenty of others would think this is easily a 5 star read! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Alcohol, Biphobia, Drug use, Self harm, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Lesbophobia, Suicide attempt, Death, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Suicide, Mental illness, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Drug abuse, and Abandonment

mandkips's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Child death, Drug use, and Addiction

Moderate: Body shaming, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Homophobia, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, and Infidelity

Minor: Vomit

elenushka8's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Drug use, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Child death, Sexual harassment, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Blood, Death, Addiction, Alcoholism, Suicide, Grief, and Mental illness

just_one_more_paige's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

 

So, this book was one of the many books "donated" to the library while we were physically closed during COVID (and were not accepting donations). But you can't stop people from putting whatever they want in the book drop, as it turns out. Anyways, in this case, it turned out pretty well for me, as I'd been interested in reading it and was able to grab it for myself! 

 

Diaz's memoir covers her childhood and adolescence in both Puerto Rico and Miami. And what an intense and difficult youth it was. Every day, or so it seemed, she faced some kind of violence and trauma, from the inconsistencies in her home life (her father's infidelity/absenses, her maternal grandmother's judgement, her mother's battle with schizophrenia, her brother's violence) to the violence of her schools/neighborhoods (fights, substance misuse, abusive relationships, phsyical and sexual assault) to her own internal struggles with mental health (depression, suicide attempts, self-worth and identity) to the intergenerational trauma of colonialism. And yet, there are shining moments of support from her sister and close friends and paternal grandmother that give hope and a reason to push forward despite everything. 

 

Honestly, this memoir was a lot. I don't know if I was fully aware of what I was getting into when I started reading/listening, if I'm being honest. There was not a single moment or page that didn't need some kind of content warning. It was like hit after hit that, as it was difficult to absorb for myself as the reader, I cannot imagine what it must have been like to live. While all of these were affecting and a bit overwhelming, there was a particular thread, that of the real life case of Lazaro Figueroa, that was carried through the majority of the book that really hit me the deepest. I hadn't heard of it before, but the way Diaz follows it as it happens, refers back to it throughout, and reaches out to Figeroa's mother in prison, intertwining that story with her own speculations about motherhood and what it meant to her to be so profoundly let down by her own mother, the one person who is supposed to unconditionally and fully care for you, was very affecting. 

 

I will say that I did get a bit lost in the timeline, which absolutely could have been intentional, but when something was happening or how it fit into the larger picture of Diaz's life always felt just a bit out of my grasp. This was likely exacerbated by the style of her writing, as there were numerous times when she would describe a situation/emotion/reaction, followed by a statement like "but I wouldn't know that til later." So it was foreshadowed in that way and then more fully addressed later on and that jumping around left me feeling unmoored. However, like I said, that may have been the point, as imparting that feeling on the reader seems like another way Diaz communicated her own feelings of confusion and not-belonging as she grew up. 

 

Really, as with all memoirs, it's hard to write a full-on review. A person's life/experience is their own, to share or not as they see fit (and in this case, are brave enough to do). So other than what I've already touched on, and reiterating the warnings to future readers to be careful with the content, I'll just leave you with the overall vibe that I got while reading this. Despite the harshness of Diaz's life, this power in this memoir came in the form of her ode to all the "ordinary girls" like herself, the vividness and fierceness in her words and in sharing her story in order to recognize these lives like her own. And it was a potent message. 

 

(A final note, the Goodreads blurb for this one compares it to memoirs like Westover's Educated and Mailhot's Heart Berries and I have to be honest, those comparisons seem spot on to me, considering the intensity of the story/topics. Also, the style of writing, with Ordinary Girls as a sort of mix of those two narrative and poetic styles, respectively.)   

 

“This was our history, I would eventually learn. We’d come from uprisings against colonial rule, slavery, massacres, erasure. We’d carried histories of resistance, of protest.” 

“We’re supposed to love our mothers. We’re supposed to trust them and need them and miss them when they’re gone. But what if that same person, the one who’s supposed to love you more than anyone else in the world, the one who’s supposed to protect you, is also the one who hurts you the most?” 

“Everybody wanted to control what we wore, what we did, who we did it with. We were not the girls they wanted us to be. We were not allowed to talk like this, to want like this, were not supposed to feel the kind of desire you feel at thirteen, at fourteen. What kind of girl, they loved to say. What kind of girl, even as they took what we gave, took what we tried to hold on to. Our voices. Our bodies. We were trying to live, but the world was doing its best to kill us.” 

“…for the first time in my life, I believed I could be good at something, that I could have a life full of promise and opportunity. It was the first time in my life that people expected me to succeed, that they looked at me and saw someone who was smart, and capable, with a future. And it scared the hell out of me. It had been easier to let people assume I would end up dead, or in jail, or strung out and living on the streets. It had been easier to want nothing, to believe in nothing.” 

“This is who I write about and who I write for. For the girls they were, the girl I was, for girls everywhere who are just like we used to me. For the black and brown girls. For the girls on the merry-go-round making the world spin. For the wild girls and the party girls, the loudmouths an troublemakers. For the girls who are angry and lost. For the girls who never saw themselves in books. For the girls who love other girls, sometimes in secret. For the girls who believe in monsters. For the girls on the edge who are ready to fly. For the ordinary girls. For all the girls who broke my heart. And their mothers. And their daughters.” 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Body shaming, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Violence, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Rape, Physical abuse, and Mental illness

Moderate: Homophobia and Injury/Injury detail

ginadapooh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Child death, Child abuse, Colonisation, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Rape, Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, and Mental illness

indiarose8's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

Loved the poetic writing but it was a rough read. Not for before bedtime reading.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Bullying, Colonisation, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Grief, and Toxic relationship

bookish_calirican's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Domestic abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Death, Child death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Pedophilia and Rape

jackielynlyn's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Racism, Racial slurs, Rape, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, Self harm, and Physical abuse

Minor: Sexual violence and Gun violence

whatannikareads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

4.5!

although jaquira isn't 70 or 80 years old, her life up to this point is heavy, and she has a whole lotta stories in her arsenal. you are completely sucked into all of the characters and their stories, as well as jaquira's journey navigating her own struggles with addiction, abusive parents, etc. it's a raw and blunt telling of what it's like living in puerto rico and miami primarily during the 80s and 90s, and how history has multiple ways of affecting the intricacies of our own lives: from concepts as broad as colonialism and slavery to specific ones as bloodlines and living environments. a really captivating read that makes you want to read more.

my only critique is that she has a tendency to jump back and forth between timelines; she'll foreshadow relationships with a specific person, for example, and it happens often, so i found myself being confused at what age of hers we're at. one chapter we'll be at age 18 at this point with a person, and then we'll go back to 14 and i'll have to remember where the relationship with said person was at at the time. it jumbled up my experience a bit reading it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Violence