Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love by Jonathan Van Ness

20 reviews

lisettemarie's review

emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction

Moderate: Body shaming, Cancer, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

tieflingmom's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Alcoholism, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Cancer, Rape, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Dysphoria, Addiction, Homophobia, Death, Fatphobia, Medical trauma, Outing, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Child abuse, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Lesbophobia, Alcohol, Animal death, Biphobia, Dementia, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, and Self harm

maldonadobryan's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, Self harm, Dysphoria, Drug abuse, and Eating disorder

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

pacifickat's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

I'm not sure I could have read a memoir about someone with more different life experiences to my own, but here's to a year of reading broadly! 

The audiobook absolutely made this book work for me as a reader. There were so many jokes and moments that relied on anticipating the correct voice intonation in order to completely land, and it was fun hearing JVN's humor come through in the audio narration. Plus, I would have hopelessly butchered all the Russian pseudonyms in my head.

Lots of trigger warnings could be applied to this book (childhood trauma, sexual content, drug use, self harm, bullying, etc.), but I have rarely heard more accurate or compelling descriptions of addictive behaviors and the self-destructive-yet-all-consuming mental state behind them than here. This felt like an extremely honest and open account of the author's most formative life experiences, and I can't help but admire that. 

I also really appreciated learning a bit about AIDS/HIV stigma, treatments, and current positive prognoses when caught early and managed carefully. This kind of information is truly a public service to get out there in the open.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Homophobia, Drug abuse, Bullying, Chronic illness, Self harm, Addiction, Death of parent, Drug use, Cancer, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Dementia, Terminal illness, Alcoholism, Sexual content, Death, Sexual assault, and Alcohol

Minor: Eating disorder and Fatphobia

officialdani's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.25

I love JVN and loved this book! I respect so much him sharing his past struggles with such a mass audience, owning all parts of himself, and celebrating his wins. As he mentions the goal of writing this book, I genuinely believe it will help so many young LGBTQ+ 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Self harm, Addiction, and Cancer

Moderate: Sexual content, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Bullying, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Drug use, and Death

Minor: Infidelity, Homophobia, and Grief

book_dragon_'s review

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Wow. I want to hug jvn.
I can't believe want this beautiful person had to go trough...

Please look at the tws!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Death, Self harm, Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Death of parent, Drug abuse, and Cancer

emmak788's review against another edition

emotional hopeful medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Infidelity

Moderate: Drug abuse

itstheconnorsbookclub's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative inspiring sad fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Self harm, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cancer, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Body shaming, Child abuse, Blood, Hate crime, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

_inge's review

hopeful inspiring medium-paced

3.0

This feels very authentic. It’s clearly written by Jonathan, so that does mean it’s not structured as nicely or does anything special, but you can tell so much thought and effort has been put into it. Jonathan explains issues within the LGBTQ+ community because JVN feels they’re important to share, not because the publishers wanted to put them in. I’d especially recommend the audiobook, I really can’t imagine this coming across as well on paper. 

This audiobook was genuinely a hopeful one. We all mess up in life, we might not immediately achieve our goals, but if you stay true to who you are despite what others might say or do, you’ll get there in the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Trafficking, Terminal illness, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Homophobia, Grief, Death, and Addiction

Moderate: Pedophilia, Self harm, Body shaming, Bullying, Kidnapping, and Vomit

blainereads's review

hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.75

I would probably only recommend reading to this one as an audiobook. While it's a fairly solid memoir, JVN's personality is probably what you've come for, and certainly why you'll stay. The pacing is kind of erratic in the way it jumps around from milestone to milestone; he moves on so quickly from what feel like huge moments that you can't help but feel a little unsatisfied by the lack of reflection. I think this would be an excellent memoir if it were to be written in a few years when he has a little more time to consider how to present his story—it just feels like it was probably rushed to capitalize on the Moment, which fair enough!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Child abuse, Medical content, Addiction, Drug abuse, Homophobia, and Self harm