Reviews

Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

_rebeccab's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-paced

2.5

welllovedspines's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

soupsnspooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

libraincarnate's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

4.5

Visceral, raw, stunning writing about style difficult topics.

vixvoncroz's review against another edition

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5.0

Incredible and relatable in ways I wasn't prepared for.

seymone's review against another edition

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4.0

4.5 stars

Gritty, Raw, and Triggering

Poetic short stories/letters about significant periods/experiences in the authors life meant to reveal herself to her children and ex husband.

Author transforms the simplest words in to hard hitting, impactful sentences.

thebookishboymom's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

 Terese Marie Mailhot's memoir is a deeply personal and poetic exploration of trauma, motherhood, and identity, weaving together the threads of her own experiences on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation. With its slow-burning intensity and unflinching honesty, "Heart Berries" is sure to resonate with readers who look of stories that shine a light on the complexities of human relationships and the struggles of self-discovery. 

holasoyrohan's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective fast-paced

3.5

It's hard to adequately rate memoirs because they're so personal and can be unique in what a memoir means to the writer, and this was no exception. I took in Heart Berries via audiobook and unfortunately I find that specific narrator to just not do the books justice that they read. I also struggled a lot with the perspective as the reader being that of a toxic ex for most of the book, had to really make myself push through that aspect and finish the book. I'm glad I did, especially to hear the QA and the end. 

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laurhi's review against another edition

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4.0

"What I feel struck with is something smaller, in a less impressive world. I woke up today, confused, inside of something feminine and ancestral in its misery. I woke up as the bones of my ancestors locked in government storage. My illness has carried me into white buildings, into the doctor's office and the therapist's - with nothing to say, other than I need my grandmother's eyes on me, smiling at my misguided heart. Imagine their faces when I say that." (pg. 17).

"We fought for hours, and I didn't say that my mother had spent her life waiting for service." (pg. 24)

"In white culture, forgiveness is synonymous with letting go. In my culture, I believe we carry pain until we can reconcile with it through ceremony. Pain is not framed like a problem with a solution. I don't even know that white people see transcendence the way we do. I'm not even sure that their dichotomies apply to me." (pg. 28).

"I wanted him to see us and decide we were worth a play in our own right. I wanted him to see my mother, beyond a groupie, or a cliché or an Indian woman-because she was more. He didn't see her." (pg. 37).

"In moments like that, I remembered the ladybugs and mold. I remembered sour meat in the fridge and needing Mom to come home. I remembered what it was like to be nothing." (pg. 95)

"Pain is faster than light, and I wish people would not fault me for the things I can't forget or explain." (pg. 99)

jocelyn_t's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad tense

4.0