Reviews tagging 'Dysphoria'

The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner: A Memoir by Grace Tame

2 reviews

issyd23's review against another edition

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

4.0

Tame is a fucking legend! Go Grace 4👀 NB writing style was difficult to follow (it’s often scattered and her thoughts are frequently sidetracked and is a symptom of her autism and ADHD) but I appreciated getting an insight into her nuro-divergent mind. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Classism, Cursing, Eating disorder, Stalking, Ableism, Body shaming, Grief, Mental illness, Rape, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexual assault, Abandonment, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Dysphoria, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Police brutality, and Toxic relationship

curatoriallyyours's review

challenging dark emotional slow-paced

2.5

Grace Tame’s story is an important one - there is no doubt about it. And the moments when she speaks about her experience of child sexual abuse and dealing with the media are powerful. Unfortunately, in an attempt to provide context for that part of her life story, she writes extensively about every single individual in her family and friendship group that has impacted her in (mostly) positive ways - which is probably lovely to read about if you know these people but is quite challenging to endure if you don’t because it drags on and on. I’m giving the book 2.5 stars because I think it’s worthwhile sifting through but it’s a book that could have done with some serious editing to reduce its length and to cut out the majority of the superficial character profiles of every member of Grace’s family. I would even venture to say that a ghost writer could have been useful to help Grace focus on the message she wanted to get across and to help with the structural  aspects of the book. 

Just to be clear, Grace Tame has my full support as a human being and her advocacy work has been absolutely vital to changing archaic laws and the language used to talk about child sexual abuse in Australia. But this book did not hit the mark for me, unfortunately. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia and Child abuse

Moderate: Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Drug use, Rape, and Dysphoria

Minor: Racism, Deadnaming, and Police brutality

This is the memoir of a survivor of child sexual abuse.