Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

3 reviews

carnimdream's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Addiction, Alcohol, Child abuse, Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, and Violence

Minor: Abortion and Chronic illness

eve81's review against another edition

challenging dark sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Abandonment, Child abuse, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, and Domestic abuse

stevia333k's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

3.5

usually I consider Adrienne Rich references to be an immediate DNF & didn't do so this time because it was only cited as an inspiration at the very end. In fact, the blurb my library gave in retrospect is basically trying to spin the Andrienne Rich influence -- that being said, besides some squicks, it was decent.

So this is by an author who wanted to challenge expectations about works written by indigenous authors. (I didn't pick up on how besides various marketable narratives -- i mean this in the way that both karl marx & the austrian school of economics are considered "controversial".)

Anyways, I read the book on the basis of family building & decolonization. The part about forgiveness being done in ceremonies instead of the white idea of "letting go", especially since I've struggled with that colonial dynamic too, except as a white settler I didn't have established ceremonies for context.

Admittedly I was kind of indifferent to the poetics I guess. The intersections were interesting enough.

in the interview at the end, there's 2 notes about influences on this book that the author mentions that explained the squicks I had with this book: 
- the bible (which went over my head because I'm not a Christian), 
- and Adrienne Rich (I already returned my copy of this book to the library & it was an audiobook, but the way the word "man" was used felt heteronormative & that "patriarchal" could've worked better. Like I think I figured it out via like argument from analogy with like settler vs indigenous & the fact she's mainly talking about 1 man in particular, but the lack of precision felt suspicious to me, and it turned out I was right.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Alcohol, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Incest, Infidelity, Ableism, Addiction, Medical content, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship