Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

27 reviews

theboricuabookworm's review against another edition

Gripping and raw. The lyrical way Mailhot writes about pain and trauma and grief will leave you gasping.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Rape, Suicide attempt, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, Cursing, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Abandonment, Classism, Drug use, Sexual assault, and Alcohol

leweylibrary's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.25

I'm struggling to rate this one because I don't feel like I have adequate words to do so?

I struggled with the format--or lack thereof really--and the audiobook narrator. I actually got like 35% through and then had to restart it waaaaay slower because I was finding myself missing things and not paying attention. I definitely think I would've done better with it reading it physically, there are just way too many poetic moments and literary devices at work for me to track on audio. I'm grateful for the Q&A style afterwords because it did clear up some of what the author was attempting to do. Like I now have a greater appreciation for the work she put into making her writing seem simple and punchy when while reading it, it mostly just felt jarring and hard to follow or stay invested in. 

The topics covered are obviously intense. Big trigger warnings for a lot. Covering them is absolutely vital to her story, though, and her journey towards reconciliation and healing.

Overall, I can tell it was brilliant, it just wasn't totally for me in this format. And that's okay and doesn't detract from the skill it took to write it.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Pregnancy, Abortion, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Self harm, Abandonment, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Eating disorder, Toxic relationship, Drug abuse, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts

eve81's review against another edition

challenging dark sad fast-paced

5.0

---

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.)

---

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

spicycheesecake's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.75

Such a beautiful book. The writing is amazing, and the story being told is so captivating. I was immediately pulled in from the first page, and felt emotional the whole ride through.

There are many things I could not relate with, but I understood everything, and I felt like I was there -- spectating, watching, experiencing.

I've learned about myself and my own relationships just from seeing the perspectives in this book.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Racism, Drug use, Death of parent, Addiction, Toxic relationship, Torture, Suicide attempt, Grief, Death, Violence, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Self harm, Abandonment, Pregnancy, Drug abuse, and Cursing

Moderate: Abortion

solenodon's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

4.5

Intense and poetic — will be re reading at some point. Trigger warning for sure 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Misogyny, Domestic abuse, Abandonment, Alcohol, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Abortion, Vomit, Eating disorder, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, Racism, Sexual content, Child abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, and Self harm

stagasaurus's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Colonisation, Mental illness, Death of parent, Self harm, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Abortion, Child abuse, Abandonment, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Confinement, Eating disorder, Self harm, and Sexual content

honeyvoiced's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Mental illness, Eating disorder, Addiction, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Sexual harassment, and Pregnancy

Minor: Rape and Violence

seeceeread's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad

💭 "Séliš stories are a lot like its art: sparse and interested in blank space; the work must be striking."

This is a torrent. Relentless, stream-of-conscious nonsequiturs circle back to each other. The book is a menacing bath of tales:

assault and need and love and violence and therapy and mothering and child separation and tenderness and despair and and and

. Mailhot seems to want to purge the hurt, to exorcise her uncertainty by naming: she has felt, craved, demanded, retreated. 

I winced to witness, to relive so intimately all that has sliced her.

The author nicks as she tells us of the small ladder she carved into her arm while pregnant.

Like her girlhood self, we are coaxed and cornered into small spaces with the grotesque, wondering if it's safe to speak, to look away. I wanted to hold her at times, a quiet listener as an irregular heartbeat sang of heartache. At others, I wanted to run away, to commit violence against her selfish lover and to snap her into nonchalance. These whiplashes of emotion and intention mirror hers, further evidence she submerged me.

💭 "The tips of your fingers felt like wet grapes. I wanted to bite every one."

Expect to be nipped.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Violence, Abandonment, Classism, Colonisation, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Grief, Suicide, and Child abuse

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Colonisation, Addiction, Alcoholism, and Classism

mlewis's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Pregnancy, Vomit, Infidelity, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Sexual violence, Abandonment, Alcoholism, and Death of parent

Minor: Colonisation and Sexual content