Reviews tagging 'Abortion'

The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir by Michele Harper

9 reviews

samarakroeger's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

a fairly run of the mill memoir that took a preachy turn towards the end. 

Dr. Harper tries to interweave her traumatic upbringing with vignettes about her ER patients but spends too much time lecturing on the beauty of yoga and not enough on meaningful self-reflection. I thought she was leaning too heavily on the inevitable emotions of the ER (like dead babies) to carry the heft of the memoir. It didn’t really work. 

There’s still plenty of interesting material to engage in, though, so I’m not mad about finally reading it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Cancer, Rape, Medical trauma, Abortion, Domestic abuse, Death, Gun violence, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Terminal illness

sofipitch's review

dark hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

Harper bears witness and gives voice to how societies failure often brings patients to her as an ER doctor. This book was not only surprisingly hopeful but after everything Harper herself has gone through and then seen you really end up hopeful yourself.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, and Police brutality

Moderate: Racism, Physical abuse, Cancer, Gun violence, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Bullying, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Addiction, Abortion, and Alcoholism

jendif's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Child death

Moderate: Racism, Sexism, and Child abuse

Minor: Sexual assault, Rape, Abortion, and Suicide

blackcatkai's review

informative reflective slow-paced

3.0

CW: death (child & adult), child abuse, ableism, fatphobic & trans-exclusionary vibes (as is common when dealing with the medical/health field as a whole, apparently), sexual assault 

overall i enjoyed reading about Dr Harper & her beginning years in the medical field. mostly the last 1/3rd kind of got under my skin, but that may be a preference thing. a lot of good insight here, though the author is big into forgiveness to grow while I am a firm proponent of you don't owe anyone anything, not even forgiveness. 

you can absolutely grow & flourish without needing to forgive someone who hurt you. but that's just me and that's ok! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical trauma, Medical content, Child abuse, Child death, Mental illness, Chronic illness, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Racism, Rape, Terminal illness, Violence, Sexism, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Ableism, Drug abuse, Addiction, Cancer, Chronic illness, Gun violence, Police brutality, Abortion, Fatphobia, Grief, and Drug use

poppyseedromance's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Suicide attempt, Abortion, Alcohol, Blood, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexism, and Suicidal thoughts

marriott_m's review

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Abortion, Child abuse, Child death, and Rape

maya_reads_books's review against another edition

reflective fast-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, and Child death

Minor: Abortion, Rape, and Sexual assault

jourdanicus's review

challenging emotional informative medium-paced

5.0

I came to this book after reading a few other medical memoirs and boy was I not prepared for it (in the best way). Dr. Harper recalls stories of patients who have affected her and draws connections between their experiences, the lessons she learned from them, her own experiences as a Black woman/survivor of abuse, and to top it all off brings in discussion of systemic and institutional racism/sexism/violence. Just... incredible. It was both refreshing and challenging (in a growth way) to read a memoir by someone who is so mentally and spiritually well, and has truly done the work to get to that point. I would recommend this book to pretty much anyone, I think we all have a lot to learn from it. Much respect and appreciation to Dr. Harper for sharing parts of her life and perspective in the form of this book.

*And yes, there are a lot of potential triggers discussed in this book but Dr. Harper handles each topic with such sensitivity and grace that, while this may be a challenging read for some, it is not carelessly or blatantly triggering. I hope the content warnings don't drive away any potential readers.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Medical content, Misogyny, Racism, and Sexism

Minor: Blood, Abortion, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Gun violence, Drug use, Drug abuse, Chronic illness, Alcoholism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, and Rape

alexdicanio's review

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

This is a beautiful memoir filled with so much emotion, yet so much hope. The author discusses a lot of issues including; racism, sexism, misogyny, white supremacy, fragile/toxic masculinity, bigotry, sexual assault, domestic violence, and bureaucratic/administrative setbacks and inefficiencies. Not only does Harper have a gift for medicine and healing, but also writing. I felt the book had a nice flow and pace. 

I would truly love to read more from her in the future, and I hope she does continue writing. 

As this is a memoir, I am not giving it a star rating. I do highly recommend for people to read this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Death, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Cancer, Child abuse, Terminal illness, Suicide, Sexism, Sexual assault, Racism, Physical abuse, Drug use, and Rape

Minor: Abortion and Alcoholism