Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Dog Flowers: A Memoir

Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Dog Flowers: A Memoir by Danielle Geller

21 reviews

nordstina's review

3.25

In her memoir Dog Flowers, Danielle Geller charts her complicated history with her family, where the perils of alcoholism and drug use run rampant, causing chaos within the family. Her mother leaves her and her sister Eileen. Both her parents are alcoholics and Eileen also begins drinking and using drugs. The move around frequently, and this memoir really is a peek into what instability, trauma, and abuse can do to a family. It's a difficult read, as individuals continue to cycle through challenges. Danielle also gets to know her mother's Navajo family better and begins to embrace her Native American culture.

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sammies_shelf's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

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hollyd19's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5

With sharp, honest writing Geller pieces together a mosaic of her life in the aftermath of her mother's death from alcohol withdrawal. Using her training as an archivist, Geller takes the fragmented records found in an old suitcase kept by her mother's on-again, off-again lover to formulate an account of her mom's history and revise her own memories of her youth.

Raised by alcoholic, often abusive parents and bounced between caregivers, Geller's youth was ragged and disjointed. Abandoned early on by her enigmatic mother, Geller was raised largely by her paternal grandmother -- possibly the only sober adult in her life until college. Knowing anecdotally about her mother's Navajo heritage but with no established connections herself, Geller is confronted with this added grief of lost community when a memorial service brings her back to the reservation where her mother was raised.

The writing in this memoir reflects the contradictions and tensions Geller felt as a person trying to grow up in a wildly dysfunctional household, attempting to break the cycles but with virtually no support to do so. Her role within her family -- immediate and extended -- is one of mature caregiver, even to those who traditionally should be providing her guidance. Geller's resilience is remarkable, but the memoir does not feel like a victory story, rather an endurance. Her circumstances are devastating, but somehow she maintains enough softness toward the people she loves to continue to be their touchstone even when it seems to be destroying her. This is a memoir of love but also extraordinary tragedy -- both acute and drawn-out.

I marveled at Geller's ability to write both poetically and phlegmatically, as if her numbness seeped through her pen. Critically, there was no sense of apathy, but rather a sense of unease and resignation. The end of the book was exceptionally poignant: Geller doesn't "triumph" over her circumstances. But she chooses her life and herself, and does so in small, faithful ways.

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old_murr's review

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challenging emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

5.0

Geller’s memoir is beautiful and engrossing. The world is so unfair to pile disproportionate tragedy and hardship on certain people. As a reader, I felt transported into her world and familiar with the people in her life. But it is clear that there is so much more to her life and to those she depicts than can ever be captured on a page, and made digestible for the masses. Danielle has lived a beautiful life and has deep family ties and loyalty. I love her sentiment of choosing her sisters. And herself. That is beautiful and brave. She has a beautiful mind.

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wenona66's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

a really nice flow with sections of Danielle's life that were told kind of in vignettes. I liked the way it wasn't too detached while still being quite to-the-point-- there are no apologies for what she writes about and there is no trying to make it more palatable for the reader. You learn a lot about Geller by the way she writes about the events in the memoir.

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bookishcori's review

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reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

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krys_kilz's review

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

This book was HEAVY, so please be mindful of the trigger warnings before reading. With that said, this memoir felt almost easy in a way even though the subject matter was anything but. As the friend I read it with put it, it was like listening to a friend.

Geller's voice was refreshing. She doesn't sugar coat anything nor does she attempt to give her pain/trauma a deeper meaning or poetic beauty. She simply lays it all out without apology. And that raw vulnerability felt like a breath of fresh air. As a survivor, your story doesn't have to prioritize other people's comfort or inspire others with your unbelievable strength. It doesn't have to be palatable. It can just be.

I especially appreciated how Geller spoke about forgiveness and the repeating cycles of addiction and recovery. And how you cannot force other people to change no matter how much you love them.

Structuring the memoir around archived family photos, journal entries, and letters was also a really cool writing methodology.

tw: death of a parent, alcoholism, addiction, child abuse, domestic abuse

"...the longer I stood there, the more I realized I wasn't angry at myself. I wasn't even angry at my mother. I was angry at things outside our control. I was angry at the broken communities we were born into, and the godly men who perpetuated the cycles of abuse. Who told us to seek happiness in ignorance and faith in a God who seemed indifferent to our suffering. Who taught us to forgive too readily, and that forgiveness restored power, when in my experience, forgiveness had only taken my power away."

"Can't you see? Everything keeps repeating. All of this has happened before. I don't want you to end up like our parents."
Eileen took my hands, drew them down into her lap, and looked into my eyes. "I'm just happy you made it out," she said, softly. "It had to get one of us, you know?"

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