Reviews

Thin Places by Kerri ní Dochartaigh

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kbrenn12's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective relaxing medium-paced

5.0

katiebhastings's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

2.0

piedwarbler's review

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5.0

Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2021, and deservedly so, this is a book about nature and landscape, but it is also about the borders people put across the land. It tells of the Troubles, and the Northern Irish border, and the people whose lives have been impacted by the border, petrol bombings, murders, and suicides, all of which lead to the author’s decision to leave the island of Ireland. And yet. And yet… she is drawn back, in a wise beyond words way of cleansing herself of memories of the traumatic childhood she suffered.
This book is spell-bindingly beautiful, moving, heart sore, thoughtful, compassionate, grieving, and appreciative. I would highly, highly recommend it. One of my books of the year. Uplifting, magical, poetic, raw, heartfelt.

mags_connolly's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.5

Almost the whole book feels like a poetic re-telling of the same visions and sentiments and themes- it’s not until the last section and final few chapters that you feel as though something is happening. And this isn’t a critique per se because isn’t that often what grief and trauma in life is? A shadowy mess of all-too related moments until it’s not. And time and healing begin their work to create difference. However, there were moments where it was quite slow. Beautiful, but slow.

kizzia's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

I cannot overstate how wonderfully written this book is. The language, the shape of the sentences and paragraphs, the emotions pressed into the page by the ink that then explode through you as you read.

Kerri’s words turned me inside out, flipped me upside down, held me in a state of awe and wonder, and then returned me to myself a slightly different person.

This is one of those books that, if I had my way, I would make everyone read because not only is it timely and vital, it shows just how powerful the written word can be, when those words are shaped by skillful hands.

Just read it. Please.