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krobart's review against another edition
4.0
See my review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2014/12/16/day-629-giving-up-the-ghost/
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2014/12/16/day-629-giving-up-the-ghost/
sujuv's review against another edition
4.0
A beautifully written book - no surprise there - but it took me a while to get into it. It's a memoir of Mantel's childhood and early adulthood which included illness and infertility. After spending a while in her younger years she admits she's postponing getting to the tough stuff and for me that's where the book took off. It is not an ordinary memoir at all. It does roughly follow a chronology but it's impressionistic and certainly not about laying out a formal storyline. Well worth it once I got hooked.
charlottesometimes's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25
ninariella's review against another edition
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Fatphobia, Medical trauma, Medical content, Infertility, Dysphoria, Forced institutionalization, Chronic illness, Mental illness, and Grief
bookbound2019's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.5
kathrinpassig's review against another edition
4.0
CW: Im letzten Drittel geht es sehr ausführlich um Schmerzen, Krankheit, Endometriose, Kinderlosigkeit und starke Gewichtszunahme. Wenn man gerade nichts über frauenfeindliche und allgemeine Missstände in der Medizin, über die Reaktion der Welt auf Fett und über ungewollte Kinderlosigkeit lesen will, ist das nicht das richtige Buch.
anneofgreenplaces's review against another edition
4.0
As usual, excellent prose and lithe narrative from Hilary Mantel, albeit not entirely gripping. It’s a true memoir (rather than an autobiography), selecting threads from her life and weaving them thematically together around perception, identity, illness, childhood, infertility, feminism, and writing. Interesting to see the threads that also show up in her novel Beyond Black which I recently read—the lurking of phenomena and ghostly memories or absences, the mediocre house they build in Slough and the suburban neighbors with rowdy children underlining the absence of her own, the physical and psychological implications of being fat. Extended insight into the medical neglect of gynecological disease and the experience of chronic illness.