Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography by Audre Lorde

4 reviews

dominic_t's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

"Every woman I have ever loved has left her print upon me..."

This is an amazing book that transcends the memoir genre. Lorde calls it a biomythography, and that really fits. She centers her analysis of her life on her relationships with women and explores how each woman shaped her. Her writing is so vivid and provides a window into what life was like for gay-girls (her term) in the northeast US in the 40s and 50s. 

She wrote so beautifully about each relationship and really captured the experiences of infatuation, love, and heartbreak. I viscerally felt the highs and laws.

I also loved reading about the community of gay women she belonged to. It was a fascinating window into the past. She went into a lot of detail about her experience as a Black woman in a majority white community and explored the complexity of her friendships and relationships with white women. She also talked about her struggles to fit into the community as a woman who wasn't either butch or femme. I've read the perspectives of butches and femmes from communities like hers, and it was cool to get the perspective of someone who didn't fit in either role.

The progressive communities of that time were really homophobic and saw queerness as "bourgeoisie." In response to that, she wrote, "I didn’t know how I was going to bring my personal and political visions together, but I knew it had to be possible because I felt them both too strongly, and knew how much I needed them both to survive...Any world which did not have a place for me loving women was not a world in which I wanted to live, nor one which I could fight for." That quote deeply resonates with me. I can feel both her pain and her hope.

This is not an easy read. She covers abuse, bigotry, and suicide in detail. Even though the book was filled with tragedy, I ended the book feeling hopeful. Throughout everything, she had a vision of a better world, and I was able to see it too.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Physical abuse, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Sexual content, Alcoholism, Animal death, Alcohol, Racism, and Rape

Moderate: Cancer

Minor: Racial slurs

meemawreads's review

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

4.5

I can confirm I loved this book because I read it so. Slowly. I know some people speed up when they get into a book but the more I like a book, the more I let my eyeballs linger and reread good sentences. And these were some good sentences. Prose by a poet, a fave yet again!
In Zami (the Carriacou word essentially meaning "lesbian") we follow Audre Lorde through childhood, adolescence, and the start of her adulthood. I assume "biomythography" means she took some creative liberty in the storytelling. Judging by the richly remembered women and relationships she recounts, I imagine the liberties were taken in their precisely recounted days. I don't care what was real and what wasn't, this book about lesbians in the 1950s published in the 1980s gave me such a more three dimensional idea of American Lesbian ancestors. Lorde was an intersectional feminist years before the term was part of our popular lexicon. So good. Four and a half taters 🥔🥔🥔🥔🍠/🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse and Child abuse

waytoomanybooks's review

adventurous challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

I’m so grateful that I was assigned this book in my Contemporary Queer Literature class. I have been meaning to read the works of Audre Lorde for a while, and I’m so glad I finally read Zami. It contains some of the most beautiful, thoughtful, challenging, descriptive prose I’ve ever read. It’s both deeply personal and deeply relatable in many aspects. Lorde leaves no stone unturned as she looks back at her life in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. We learn lessons right alongside her, and she is an excellent teacher and storyteller. This is an absolute must-read for anyone who wants to know more about queer history, Black history, feminism, and so much more. Her deep-dives into intersectionality are invaluable. You won’t be able to put this book down.

Please heed all the many, many content warnings I and others have tagged. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Body shaming, Lesbophobia, Abortion, Death, Fatphobia, Bullying, Classism, Infidelity, Grief, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Ableism, Animal death, Child death, Homophobia, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Self harm, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual harassment, Rape, Sexual violence, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, and Suicide attempt

andreiaoh's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

5.0

theres something about the way Audre Lorde describes people through language that really brings them to life in my mind, full of expression and life. I know these women obviously exist(ed) but her descriptions really made me feel like I knew them personally.

this book is so rich. the way Audre Lorde writes is so full of sensation; the beautiful words made me feel as though all of my senses were engaged, from taste to sight to smell.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion

Moderate: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Self harm

Minor: Sexual assault, Trafficking, Homophobia, Racism, Racial slurs, Physical abuse, and Death of parent