Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Content Warning: Everything by Akwaeke Emezi

15 reviews

mxpringle's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Sexual assault, Self harm, Child abuse, Homophobia, Sexual violence, Transphobia, and Racism

leadpal's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Violence, Rape, Suicide, and Gore

serenspace's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Blood, Grief, Physical abuse, and Rape

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.25

 Content Warning:Everything is a collection of poetry, much of which explores details of their life covered in their memoir and also their first novel. Seeing similar events and themes explored in different genres is intriguing. Emezi is an author whose books seem to always be in conversation with each other - each work part of a greater whole. Some poems impacted me more than others but the ones that hit, hit hard. One of the things that struck me about this collection was speculative type poems involving Biblical figures poems like What if Jesus was my Big Brother and What if Magdalene Seduced Me. While I won’t pretend I understood every poem I was captured by their raw power and emotion. Trauma and violence are definitely present - the title does not lie - but so too is resilience. I know many of us on Bookstagram gravitate to fiction far more than poetry. If you want to give contemporary poetry a try and have read some of Emezi’s previous work, particularly Freshwater and/or Dear Senthuran then I recommend giving this a go. Familiarity with those works will really help ease your way with a less familiar genre. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, and Sexual violence

catandherbooks's review

emotional reflective fast-paced

3.25

Poetry is still not my thing but I loved The Death of Vivek Oji and You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty so I wanted to read more of Emezi's body of work. Underlined more passages than I expected, didn't always understand or felt able to connect the writing (it's not them, it's me) but it felt raw and tender and oftentimes stunning. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Self harm

thatenbyisisreads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

This book, especially the poem, "I was born in a great length of river", helped remind me that despite all of my trauma, I will never know what it's like to drown. Akwaeke Emezi is truly such an inspiring and powerful author, I highly recommend everyone to read their work! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Self harm, Toxic relationship, and Sexual assault

starrysteph's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

4.25

beautiful. chilling.

CW: rape, self harm, suicide, child abuse, emotional & physical abuse, homophobia, transphobia, death, blood, violence, cannibalism, medical trauma

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Transphobia, Physical abuse, Homophobia, Death, Blood, Violence, Rape, Self harm, Child abuse, Medical trauma, Suicide, and Cannibalism

honeyvoiced's review

fast-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Physical abuse, Rape, and Self harm

Moderate: Medical content

Minor: Biphobia

clara_mai's review against another edition

3.0

 I love Akwaeke Emezi's novels Freshwater and The Death of Vivek Oji and their memoir Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir, not least due to their stunning writing and vivid imagery, so my expectations for their poetry collection were quite high. After reading all the poems in this book I can say that generally, I enjoy the concept of the collection, particularly the series of poems in which the lyrical self is related to the holy family (mary, jesus, joseph, magdalene all appear), more than the actual pieces. Having read their memoir, most of the content of this collection, which is as far as I understand mostly autobiographical, is familiar. I once again felt a deep admiration for Emezi while reading, because they express their identity as well as their traumatic experiences so boldly through art. At the same time, while I found individual lines and images to be striking, many of the poems left me without any particular feeling or a lasting impression. Others that dealt very explicitly with heavy content did certainly leave an impression because of said content but the writing, the poetic technique didn't really. Exceptions for me are self-portrait as an abuser, which is masterfully crafted and extremely effective and the first and last poem of the collection (both part of the "holy family cycle"). All in all this is good, but I would rather recommend Emezi's prose if you've never read anything by them. Lastly, I want to add that I'm really no expert when it comes to poetry, as I don't really write it myself and haven't thoroughly studied it (especially not in English) or even read much of it. This is all just a very subjective take of my experience reading this collection. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Medical content and Injury/Injury detail

softanimal's review against another edition

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Toxic relationship, Self harm, and Rape