Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu

21 reviews

gabi_tron's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Cancer, Death of parent, Terminal illness, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Emotional abuse, and Gun violence

laurikas's review

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

4.0

This book hurt me in many ways. Not only because the writing is very moving, but also because Nadia's experiences are very relatable and yet very distressing.

We live in a society that screams at us from every angle how in control we are of our lives. How we can turn any situation around, if only we give it our best. Have cancer? You can BEAT cancer.
Are going through lost and grieving? You will MOVE ON.
Suffer depression? You can BAT it away, focus on the good stuff.
Have a tough job? Try HARDER for a job you love.

It's all royal crap. Stuff we say and repeat non-stop so we try and give some logic to this endless noise and senseless experiences we go through. At the end of the day we have as much control over our health, happiness, well being, as any other creature. It's all part of our stories, and sometimes we just need to live through the earthquake and come back on the other side like Nadia did.

I pour libation to you Nadia. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Grief, Abandonment, and Death of parent

rillastone's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Death of parent, Mental illness, Sexual harassment, and Suicidal thoughts

hot_water's review

adventurous dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Death, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Racism

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Homophobia, Colonisation, Cancer, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Xenophobia

kayleyhyde's review

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Death of parent, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, Homophobia, and Cancer

jesseisilliterate's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Mental illness, and Sexual assault

bookreviewswithkb's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

5/5 ✨✨✨✨✨ TOP TIER

it’s a memoir but really so much more than that. a personal memoir. a memoir of how trauma lives in the body and is passed through generations. a memoir of home, and what not having a traditional home might mean. a memoir of colonialism. a memoir of anti-blackness. a memoir of motherhood. of loss. of parental death. of abandonment. of deceit. of family. of depression. of natural disaster; earthquakes. 

“history is many stories. those stories are written, spoken and sung. they are carried in our bodies. they billow all around us like copper-colored dust that sometimes obscures everything. in these stories, we grasp at meaning. we search for ourselves, for our place, for direction. we search for a way forward: an invitation home, a meteor, a lake, a child landing with a splat. destruction and creation. changes in light, terrain, and atmosphere. delicate new freedom. hope.”

read it

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault and Death of parent

signediza's review

emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Racism, and Religious bigotry

jayisreading's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

Aftershocks is an intimate, beautifully written memoir that explores belonging and identity with incredible nuance and grace. I wouldn’t quite call this an experimental approach to memoirs (e.g., In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado), but it doesn’t follow conventions when it comes to memoirs. Owusu opts out of temporality and, instead, takes the reader through her own temporality that you could argue is defined by a seismometer. I really liked how she divided her memoir up into events related to earthquakes (hence, the title). This presentation of her life, culture, and history through vignette-like pieces takes the reader into a liminal space that Owusu often feels she exists in.

Owusu brings such unique perspective to the table as a biracial woman (Ghanaian Armenian) who had a less grounded childhood as a result of her father’s job with the United Nations. In addition, she brings to attention what it’s like dealing with madness, grief, and trauma; deeply contemplating on their connections with each other and to her life. She traces these through her fraught relationships with her mother and stepmother, the death of her father, the various countries she lived in and, of course, her identity.

Owusu invites you into her world in Aftershocks, but in such a way that doesn’t allow you to stare, because these pieces she shares with the readers are precarious. In addition, and I don’t know if this was her intention, but I thought Owusu demonstrated how intersectionality works phenomenally, especially across time and space. There’s a lot to praise— All I can say is to check this memoir out. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Cancer, Racism, Death, Grief, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Violence, Police brutality, Domestic abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Slavery, Drug use, Alcoholism, and Homophobia

Minor: Genocide and Eating disorder

meganelise's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Grief, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cancer, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Racism, Terminal illness, Violence, and Xenophobia

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Police brutality, and Genocide