Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans

5 reviews

culpeppper's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

This is bursting with feeling, and I loved everything I heard in the author's voice as she read from this. The cementing of the speaker is established very early on, in this home, before switching to other places and times, exploring the violence inflicted on black women, trans women, marginalized women, women by other women— and yet finding love, sensitivity, and care to balance out the oscillations of theme. It's not all violence, hatred, but many of the poems focus on a sense of belonging or not belonging, feeling tugged from and to things, and being questioned on who, or what, you are the entire time. It's moving, visceral, upsetting while peaceful, loving in it's care for speaker, subject, and readers alike. It offers real vulnerability that I crave in poetry. I would rate the audio book version itself a 4.75 due to having trouble discerning the poems from one another, or what their titles were, as the breaks between poetry and title were too short to pick up sometimes. I will definitely need to see these all in a printed format, because although the author's voice added much more personal depth and allowed for some really interesting readings of the poems (like "Missing Girls"), I think I need to really sit with these and read at my own pace again soon!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Pregnancy, Slavery, Lesbophobia, Death, Ableism, Murder, Torture, Medical trauma, Rape, Violence, Grief, Child death, Transphobia, Sexual violence, Misogyny, Hate crime, Toxic relationship, and Confinement

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Classism, Bullying, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, Drug use, Blood, Kidnapping, Trafficking, Medical content, Racial slurs, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Cancer

midnightreads1803's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Violence, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Sexual assault, Racism, Police brutality, and Mental illness

kaynova's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

i need to purchase the audiobook and the physical book because i need this for keepsakes, i need to hold this to my heart, no scratch that, my soul.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Lesbophobia, Grief, Police brutality, Death of parent, Body horror, Rape, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Homophobia, and Sexual assault

queenshrike's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring relaxing sad tense medium-paced

4.75

This is not a book that I think can be read in one sitting. I had to pause and come back so many times. Not just out of sadness or anger but because a phrase, a line, a stanza, a poem hit me in a deep place and I needed a moment or several really. I adore this work.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abortion, Addiction, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Gun violence, Mental illness, Murder, Racism, Bullying, Classism, Drug use, Grief, Alcohol, Colonisation, Death, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Police brutality, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Slavery

kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

Beautiful poems about all the ways Black women lose, repossess, fight for, love, and leave their homes, both figurative and literal. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Police brutality, Racism, Sexism, and Toxic relationship