Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age by Darrel J. McLeod

4 reviews

akaspiderlily's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

Broke my heart and mended it in many different ways. Trying to fix what has been warped by so many outside forces, the reckoning with queerness, the oppression of religion and colonialism. The abuse. I thank the elders who impart their stories bravely. We need them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Abandonment, Homophobia, Suicide, Pedophilia, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Rape, and Child abuse

Moderate: Child death, Deadnaming, Suicide, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, Body shaming, Bullying, Fatphobia, Incest, Medical content, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, and Addiction

amanda_marie's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Memoirs can be tricky, repetitive, or overdone. Mamaskatch is none of those things. It is beautiful, insightful. It covers tragedies but emphasizes moments of beauty. It is about the complications of family, of intersectional identities, about how we keep living, we keep going on, no matter what life does to us. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Grief, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Alcoholism, Hate crime, Toxic relationship, and Abandonment

Moderate: Death of parent, Drug abuse, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Drug use, Death, Racial slurs, Racism, and Deadnaming

xoodlebooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

“The pattern of my mother’s stories is different from the ones I hear at school. The timelines are never linear. Instead, they are like spirals. She starts with one element of a story, moves to another and skips to get a different part. She revisits each theme several times over, providing a bit more information with each pass. At first I find it hard to follow, but I’ve learned that if I just sit back and listen without interrupting, she will cover everything and make each story complete.” 

Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age by Darrel J. McLeod is a raw memoir about a gay Cree boy growing up and discovering himself while facing intergenerational trauma and complicated family relationships. It is told in a nonlinear fashion. The author talks frankly about his experiences growing up as a gay Cree boy and the tremendous amount of trauma and abuse he faced. 

McLeod writes about the internalized homophobia and racism he faced growing up because of the Catholic Church. He also writes about his mother’s horrific experiences in residential school. This book made the way religion was/is weaponized by colonizers very clear.

This book is very heavy; you should take care when reading it. Please note the content warnings. 

McLeod frequently misgenders his transgender sister, Trina, and refers to her by her deadname. At first, I wondered if it was just a questionable stylistic choice, but in the author’s note, he refers to her as his brother/sister and deadname/Trina. I don’t know if he discussed this with his sister. 

There is also a scene where McLeod refers to suicide as selfish. I haven’t seen anybody mention this, so I thought I would warn people.

Memoirs are deeply personal, so I do not want to rate this book. I will say that I am glad I read it!

This was the February book for Erin and Dani’s Book Club (Instagram: @ErinAndDanisBookClub). Thank you so much to Erin and Dani for the work you do to organize this club!

Finally, I am a White settler, so I want to direct you to reviews of Mamaskatch by Indigenous readers. I highly recommend checking out @Erins_Library, @Floury_Words, and @ThunderbirdWomanReads’s reviews on Instagram. You should follow them! They have amazing pages!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Grief, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Car accident, Excrement, and Terminal illness

Residential schools, Internalized homophobia, Grooming, Misgendering, Cheating, Religious trauma, Foster care

charleyroxy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

4.75

"A pattern of my mother's stories is different from the ones I hear at school. The timelines are never linear. Instead, they are like spirals. She starts with one element of a story, moves to another and skips to get a different part. She revisits each theme several times over, providing a bit more information with each pass. At first I find it hard to follow, but I've learned that if I just sit back and listen without interrupting, she will cover everything and make each story complete."

This quote from Mamaskatch by Darrel J. McLeod not only stood out to me because it was the way Darrel also told us his story but it reminded me of how Ernestine Hayes told us her story in Blonde Indian. I am growing to love these spiralling stories when they would have once confused me. Nothing in the story of our lives is truly linear as we are being moved along with memories of the past and ideas, hopes and dreams of the future.

"The word, mamaskatch, has stuck with me over the years. Mom used to say it a lot when we were kids when things happened that were a bit extraordinary. I gave the book that title after going online with some fluent Cree speakers. I asked them what it meant and they gave various meanings, ranging from, 'How strange' to 'It's a miracle.' It is the perfect title." From a 2018 interview with McLeod

Mamaskatch is a heartbreaking and often extraordinary Cree memoir which brought up incredibly heavy topics of residential school abuses, child sexual abuse, internalised and externalised homophobia to name a few. I will add the full content warnings on Storygraph so go there to see what you should be prepared for. In the face of all that though comes the story of resilience. I would definitely recommend it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Grief, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual violence, Suicide, Addiction, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Rape, Religious bigotry, and Transphobia

There are scenes of grooming a young child, an exorcism and conversion therapy as well.