Reviews with content warning for Suicide attempt - Thin Places

I feel strongly about this book as a physical object; I think it might be the prettiest book I’ve ever seen, with the gossamer wings of a moth gracing its cover. My feelings about the words inside are more complicated. The author tells of her life growing up in Ireland, specifically in Derry, at the center of the Troubles, in a mixed religion household. Her childhood home is bombed with her inside.

Though she and her family escape, the rest of her life is marked by this trauma and more. Her best friend is senselessly murdered when she’s 16, in a place (not Derry) that she’d just begun to think of as “safe.” She battles alcoholism, depression, and suicidal ideation, as well as physical illness. She struggles to escape abusive relationships with others and with herself.

Though she finds sanctuary in nature (especially in the water, as well as through a connection with winged things), this isn’t an easy book. The story the words tell isn’t an easy one. Neither are the words themselves easy; oftentimes, sentences are fractured, mirroring the brokenness inside. The teller is also unabashedly in love with certain ideas — liminal spaces, in particular (see: title) — and I think the voice of those ideas sometimes overshadows her own, unique voice.

I wish there had been more structure, too - that each chapter had been more like a separate essay. It almost feels as though each page is written like it’s the end of the book, like the language is coming together and everything is wrapping up, continually. But then…it doesn’t. It keeps going. It’s as if she has become so sick of boundaries that her words and her work have none of the typical ones I’ve come to expect. And that’s not wrong. It’s just not easy. Dochartaigh’s deep consciousness of language sometimes reads as affected; when it doesn’t, it dips, soars, and sparkles.

I struggled as a reader at times. But on some level, that feels sort-of right. I’m glad that the author has come to a place where she’s so herself and is no longer afraid if her story makes other people feel unsettled. Even if I was unsure about the particulars of the telling, I was never uninterested or unbothered. I would read more by Kerri ni Dochartaigh - with the foreknowledge that I’d need to be comfortable with moving through her words slowly and with patient attention - which, fittingly, is also what nature asks of us.

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annick's review

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

Chapter five was when this book finally clicked for me. Beautifully sad and heartbreaking moments of reflection.

I loved so many phrases that I took to underlining the book as I went.

I was deeply moved by the lyricism and soft/quiet of the sadness and loss she speaks of. It moved me and yet amplified my own sorrows.

The writer style is one of repeating phrases (‘I think about…’) and recurring nature themes (various birds, insects, wildlife, as well as wind, river, sea, light and shadow)

The final few chapters weren’t as strong

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jaime_c's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

3.0

I wanted to enjoy this book more than I did, which as a review is unfair.

I found what Dochartaigh was attempting was interesting; I enjoyed being teased with certain details, and left with unknown gaps to fill (such as being left to really consider the broken pieces of her immediate family). I enjoyed how she played with what was left unsaid.

However, the text I found overall very repetitive. I found myself skimming certain passages, sure I’d already read them. By the final chapters I was tired of the style, of the circling and recircling/recycling of themes.

I appreciate that this book will speak deeply to some. The parts I loved were discussions of thin places and her relationship with her grandfather. I found this very open and tender.

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