Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin

16 reviews

meowrilena's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

For various reasons (let's count in the fact that this book is almost 400 pages long), it took me so long to read this book. I didn't know Lucia Berlin before randomly choosing this selection of her best short-stories. 90% of the books I have in my e-book reader are the result of weird lists of "books to read" I've found on the internet while I was panicking about having an empty e-book reader. So I don't know to which category this book used to belong. Was it in the "book to read written by women"? "Book to read if you want to get into contemporary short-stories"? I digress. It's difficult to me to say "I loved this book" because it sounds rather superficial and not accurate. It's complicated, as they say. I was fascinated by this book. Many narrators take the pen, but they seem to be linked together and a couple of stories in, you understand that it's always her, Lucia, writing about her life. Auto-fiction. You understand it because all these short stories are linked by themes. Alcoholism, the Spanish language, Latin America, working odd jobs... they all come back. Was she even trying to hide it? If after a dozen pages you start to think "I see what you're doing here, Lucia", even style wise, you cannot help but being compelled by her writing. Raw, real. As I am writing this I kinda wish there was more to read about her life, but, at the same time, I feel like I've read it all in this book.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Abortion, Alcoholism, Death, Child abuse, and Child death

Moderate: Cancer, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

bmessierlegendre's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

De l’auto-fiction à son meilleur. À travers les 43 nouvelles de ce recueil, on assiste à des quotidiens difficiles, mais présentés avec tellement de style et de beauté que ça dérange et émerveille en même temps. Le brusque et le doux se côtoient, et finalement on se laisse emporter vraiment facilement par chacune des scènes. Pour vrai, du grand art.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism

Moderate: Suicide, Violence, and Sexual violence

marbelousreads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

4.25

Berlín is a brilliant writer and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her work through this collection. My one critique is that he collection is long 27 short stories felt like too much for one book, but I can understand that it was hard to pair down from a writer who was so prolific.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Drug abuse

kleptosaurus's review against another edition

emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Alcoholism

Moderate: Abortion

milliebrierley's review against another edition

dark funny reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, and Drug use

Moderate: Abortion, Cancer, Car accident, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Racial slurs, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, and Violence

kayewa's review

challenging dark funny hopeful lighthearted sad tense medium-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Medical content

Minor: Racial slurs and Racism