Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

14 reviews

rronnniii's review

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

5.0

Amazing. Deep. Complex. I would love to reread one day with more time so I can deeply annotate. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Rape, Death, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Grief, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Eating disorder, Alcoholism, Child death, and Child abuse

paulwesterberg's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Pedophilia, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual assault and Mental illness

johoha93's review

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Violence, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, and Rape

leahcatching's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Sexual assault, Rape, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Death, Child abuse, Car accident, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Incest, and Eating disorder

shieldbearer's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

Rating memoirs always feels strange to me, but this is not a pure memoir, this is also a nonfictional account, and it is on those grounds I find fault. I am aware the author says upfront that several events around the events of the Langley trial/murder are composite, compressed or otherwise altered, but frankly I deeply disliked the aspect where the author is clearly ascribing and assuming the thought processes of the real people involved in this. "[y person] MUST HAVE [felt/thought z thing]" got extremely, tediously old. It also got irritating when the author frequently ascribed personalities and descriptions onto people we could get only glimpses from fact. Why is every person we have such glimpses of imagined by the author to be young and naive?? I would much have preferred a straight forward account of all the contradictions and complexities, even if it was more complicated. The writing is beautiful but I couldn't get past the framing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Rape, Grief, Drug abuse, Child death, Alcohol, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Incest, Gaslighting, Eating disorder, Drug use, Death of parent, Death, Emotional abuse, Body shaming, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Murder, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Cursing, and Child abuse

greatexpectations77's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

Whew, this book is so so hard, and probably because it's so well-written. I think it's as close to poetry as prose comes. So much research, so much hurt, so much trauma. Incredible. Would read anything Marzano-Lesnevich wrote.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Medical trauma, Sexual harassment, Confinement, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Car accident, Infidelity, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Rape, Addiction, Incest, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Child death, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content

Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death of parent, Misogyny, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Fatphobia, Vomit, Self harm, and Bullying

If child abuse is not good for you to read about, this is definitely a book to skip. The descriptions are extremely hard.

layton93's review

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Murder, Child death, Pedophilia, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Medical trauma, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Alcoholism, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Suicide attempt and Suicidal thoughts

paigeno's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Incest, Violence, Car accident, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Gore, Grief, Body horror, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Death

loridori70's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Wow. This book is so complicated and multi-faceted and the author does an amazing job of taking you through her complex feelings of this case as she peels the onion back on the childhood of the accused and her own childhood trauma. The two become intertwined as the process unfolds, and she is brutally honest with her thoughts and feelings throughout the process. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Rape, Murder, and Mental illness

fbzcab's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Minor: Abortion and Eating disorder