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Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'
Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness by Catherine Cho
24 reviews
angelicgay's review
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Physical abuse, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Child abuse, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicidal thoughts
sarahasyouwish's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
In this memoir, Cho lays bare her experience falling unexpectedly into postpartum psychosis. She is very honest and vulnerable with this traumatic time and the mental break from her own identity and reality. I appreciated that she was willing to share so openly about an experience around which there still seems to exist a large taboo about discussing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Physical abuse
sarahtranslates's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
sad
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, and Confinement
Moderate: Medical content
clarafoster's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Most often, finishing a really great book leaves you with a sense of deep satisfaction; a good book with pleasure but slight relief at having powered through those last 15 pages. Occasionally a book will leave you with a deep wave of sadness, because upon finishing it you know that you may not come across a book so exquisitely crafted for several more years. This was one such book.
Cho's Inferno reads like the very best kind of literary fiction, made all the more extraordinary for the fact that it's real. The memoir starts inside a psych ward, language stark and methodical, and then shimmers into something rich and resonant as she pieces together different bits of timeline that brought her to where she is now, life and legend overlapping and fusing in ways that shouldn't work but do. [Shoutout, at this point, to whomever made the creative decision to leave chapter headings blank and a fair chunk of pages unnumbered--making the experience of reading look and feel as much like a puzzle as the content itself]. Cho weaves Korean legends, history, and cultural mores throughout the narrative, entwining them expertly with literary references from the western canon and Greek mythology, whilst never losing sight of the (at times terrifyingly) real life she has led or her expert insight into the precise mannerisms and outlooks of those around her. It's a difficult story, but ultimately it's a hopeful and a human one too.
Cho's Inferno reads like the very best kind of literary fiction, made all the more extraordinary for the fact that it's real. The memoir starts inside a psych ward, language stark and methodical, and then shimmers into something rich and resonant as she pieces together different bits of timeline that brought her to where she is now, life and legend overlapping and fusing in ways that shouldn't work but do. [Shoutout, at this point, to whomever made the creative decision to leave chapter headings blank and a fair chunk of pages unnumbered--making the experience of reading look and feel as much like a puzzle as the content itself]. Cho weaves Korean legends, history, and cultural mores throughout the narrative, entwining them expertly with literary references from the western canon and Greek mythology, whilst never losing sight of the (at times terrifyingly) real life she has led or her expert insight into the precise mannerisms and outlooks of those around her. It's a difficult story, but ultimately it's a hopeful and a human one too.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Mental illness, and Violence
Moderate: Body horror
Minor: Child abuse
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