Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot

22 reviews

akmatz's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

3.25

I don't know if this style is for me. The prose is incredible, and the story, anger, and honesty are important. But the brutal honesty and lack of a sense of Terese as a person almost reads to me as dehumanizing. The substance of the book is difficult, but the voice is uncomfortable.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Sexual violence, Violence, Child abuse, and Mental illness

Moderate: Abortion, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Addiction, and Incest

Minor: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Eating disorder

lexiefolkerts's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective fast-paced

4.0

I did not know anything about this book before starting and after reading a few pages I feared I wouldn’t like it because it seemed too distant from my reality. I was wrong. Although I haven’t lived the same life as Terese or endured the same traumas, there were so many ways in which I connected to her story. This book had so many good quotes to pull from that I felt drawn to and raised emotion out of me. I would recommend this book to anyone that’s had an imperfect romantic relationship with a man. This book also delved into childhood trauma, childhood SA, grief, bipolar, suicidal thoughts, love, and heart break. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Death of parent

mgsl's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Incest

eegred's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence and Child abuse

Moderate: Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Self harm

jordansmoot's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Incest, Child abuse, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, and Sexual violence

aprilhinkle's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad tense slow-paced

3.75

Painful but important. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Addiction, and Violence

sillysausagezj's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Colonisation, Racism, Sexual violence, Addiction, Sexual assault, and Suicide

Minor: Abortion

mayaism_01's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

This was gut punch, after gut punch, after gut punch. I feel like I’ve been shattered into a million little pieces and I will never recover from this. I don’t think I’ve ever been possessed with so much anger while reading a book. I loved this so much. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Suicide attempt, Sexual violence, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Violence, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Medical content, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Vomit, Eating disorder, and Abortion

stevia333k's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

3.5

usually I consider Adrienne Rich references to be an immediate DNF & didn't do so this time because it was only cited as an inspiration at the very end. In fact, the blurb my library gave in retrospect is basically trying to spin the Andrienne Rich influence -- that being said, besides some squicks, it was decent.

So this is by an author who wanted to challenge expectations about works written by indigenous authors. (I didn't pick up on how besides various marketable narratives -- i mean this in the way that both karl marx & the austrian school of economics are considered "controversial".)

Anyways, I read the book on the basis of family building & decolonization. The part about forgiveness being done in ceremonies instead of the white idea of "letting go", especially since I've struggled with that colonial dynamic too, except as a white settler I didn't have established ceremonies for context.

Admittedly I was kind of indifferent to the poetics I guess. The intersections were interesting enough.

in the interview at the end, there's 2 notes about influences on this book that the author mentions that explained the squicks I had with this book: 
- the bible (which went over my head because I'm not a Christian), 
- and Adrienne Rich (I already returned my copy of this book to the library & it was an audiobook, but the way the word "man" was used felt heteronormative & that "patriarchal" could've worked better. Like I think I figured it out via like argument from analogy with like settler vs indigenous & the fact she's mainly talking about 1 man in particular, but the lack of precision felt suspicious to me, and it turned out I was right.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Alcohol, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Incest, Infidelity, Ableism, Addiction, Medical content, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship

emilyhcox's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual violence, Child abuse, Sexual content, and Sexual assault