Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - My Body Keeps Your Secrets

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

My Body Keeps Your Secrets by Lucia Osborne-Crowley

18 reviews

iamivypark's review against another edition

The content is really heavy! I was finding it challenging and upsetting to read the stories in the book, they are disturbing and so many horrible things have happened to the individuals interviewed for the book. Not something I could finish at this point in time as it was impacting my mental health

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busybusyreading_asako's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

“Shame is the glue that holds the false world together.”

This book is a tapestry of Osbourne-Crowley’s own experience with abuse, chronic illness, and disordered eating - as well as those of more than 100 women and non-binary people that she interviewed for this project. She treads with extreme respect and care to the stories she tells, and the result is a book that is eye-opening, highly emotional, and somehow also compulsively readable.

This was such an ambitious concept and it was so well executed. The breadth, depth, and variety of research undertaken was incredible - a combination of classic and contemporary fiction and non fiction, as well as scientific texts were referenced to create a rich and diverse backdrop for stories of the female and nonbinary experience with trauma, abuse, and the body’s reckoning.

By the way, I don’t think I’ve ever read a Non Fiction book that referenced Fiction books… Have you?? I really enjoyed little ‘aha’ moments when a book I’d read was mentioned, which usually doesn’t happen in Non Fic! Some examples are Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Dept of Speculation, Conversations with Friends, and The Crane Wife. I found these references quite refreshing and made some aspects of this text particularly accessible and relatable.

I honestly can’t recommend this highly enough. It’s heavy but readable, and so necessary.

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megabookdork's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

A difficult read and very personal account of the author and her interviewees' experiences around trauma and their bodies. Make sure you are comfortable with detailed descriptions of abuse before tackling this book. Having said that, I felt like its last two chapters are full of hope for the future... Very well constructed and an excellent ending for such a hard topic to cover.

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