Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

7 reviews

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

emotional sad fast-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Medical content, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Suicidal thoughts

mayaism_01's review

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

This was gut punch, after gut punch, after gut punch. I feel like I’ve been shattered into a million little pieces and I will never recover from this. I don’t think I’ve ever been possessed with so much anger while reading a book. I loved this so much. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Suicide attempt, Sexual violence, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Violence, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Medical content, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Vomit, Eating disorder, and Abortion

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

mscalls's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

1.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Violence

whatannikareads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

probably one of the most well-executed books i've ever read. such a particular, poignant writing style that's unflinching, blunt, but emotional. can definitely understand why people would give it a 5/5. this is more of a me problem if anything--the book has many unspoken pockets of underlying meanings that require big brain and time to really dive into and process, and my pea brain and lack of free time prevented me from really sitting with the pieces, so i don't think i absorbed as much information as intended. but there are really powerful sentences in here that stand alone in their quality.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abortion, Abandonment, Child abuse, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship

memorable's review

challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Unfortunately, I didn’t fully understand everything in this book; however, it is a strong memoir that presents a lot of resilience.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Abortion, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Colonisation, Confinement, Cursing, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Genocide, Grief, Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Violence, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, and Pedophilia

mikki_9's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Child abuse, Racism, and Sexism

Moderate: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Eating disorder, Incest, Pregnancy, Self harm, and Terminal illness

Minor: Abortion, Medical content, and Sexual harassment