Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

8 reviews

stevia333k's review against another edition

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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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foldingthepage_kayleigh's review

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

This book has won many awards for a reasons! Poetic and lyrical reflections filled with love, heartbreak, toxic relationships, darkness and the harsh realities of Teresa’s life as a Salish woman. I’ve never read a memoir quite like this one, that is written almost in prose, using beautiful language to portray such dark themes. This book might only be about 130 pages, but her story was so dense, that each sentence made me stop and reflect.

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aimnorth's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

This is a unique book that looks at trauma - past and present - and dissects it in prose like poetry. 

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stevie's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

4.5


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hannaheiserman's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.5


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mscalls's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

1.75


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atsundarsingh's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

4.25

This was so, so hard to read. It was incredibly poetic, but also one of the rawest things I have ever read, and so painful. This is so intimate and personal, I almost can't believe the author shared all of this. Mailhot is so inspiring, and so intense. 

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hannahollihan's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

3.0


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