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nviera's review
5.0
Pain and suffering stab you with every word. It’s painful, and powerful. Read it.
literateworld's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
indielitttttt's review
5.0
Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country by Cristina Rivera Garza (translated by Sarah Booker)
(CW: murder, violence, sexual assault)
This was a terribly sad read but also, really beautifully written and necessary. Garza tends to many topics in these essays, but they all surround the idea of horror and grief in Mexico and in the borderlands - femicide, state violence, and the COVID19 Pandemic among others. Garza does not mince even the most brutal words or imagery, instead she makes us face them because only when horror is visible to others can anything be done about it. This was fantastically done. Highly recommend.
5/5⭐️
(CW: murder, violence, sexual assault)
This was a terribly sad read but also, really beautifully written and necessary. Garza tends to many topics in these essays, but they all surround the idea of horror and grief in Mexico and in the borderlands - femicide, state violence, and the COVID19 Pandemic among others. Garza does not mince even the most brutal words or imagery, instead she makes us face them because only when horror is visible to others can anything be done about it. This was fantastically done. Highly recommend.
5/5⭐️
nidiamelgoza's review
4.0
Don’t let this slim volume fool you, Cristina Rivera Garza’s Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country is filled with poetic depth, visiting and living with the pain of bodies across Mexico’s history. What does it mean to be a body in pain? What is the place of grieving when that pain is as new as it is old? What does art, writing in particular, do in that process? These are just some of the questions that Garza contends with in this book.
Garza captivated me from the very first page, before I know it I was over forty pages in and underlining, note taking, pausing to let her words soak into my head and heart. Garza beautifully, intimately speaks to the heart of the reader, pulling from them the emotions of her subjects: the very real people who live with the very real pain inflicted upon them by a government that stopped caring for them long ago. On the other side of that she also displays their strength, their resilience, their hope that their fight will mean a future without that pain for the next generation.
This is one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in a long time. It has made me reconsider my experiences/perceptions with Mexico, and made me realize how little I really know, especially about events in more recent history.
Garza captivated me from the very first page, before I know it I was over forty pages in and underlining, note taking, pausing to let her words soak into my head and heart. Garza beautifully, intimately speaks to the heart of the reader, pulling from them the emotions of her subjects: the very real people who live with the very real pain inflicted upon them by a government that stopped caring for them long ago. On the other side of that she also displays their strength, their resilience, their hope that their fight will mean a future without that pain for the next generation.
This is one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in a long time. It has made me reconsider my experiences/perceptions with Mexico, and made me realize how little I really know, especially about events in more recent history.
plenilunix's review
5.0
I didn't think I was going to like this book as much as I did, especially because this is a topic I've been avoiding for a long time now.
Some of the essays felt a little abrupt in the way they ended and left me wanting for more, but that didn't make me less happy or grateful to read it.
As someone who was raised in the North East of Mexico, and comes from a family of migrants (within and outside borders), I found myself heard and written about in these pages. I find this book to be one of the most honest narratives of the everyday mourning and the existential grief of those who survived - and witnessed others not surviving - la guerra contra el narco of the 21st century.
This collection of essays makes me feel less alone in my grief, and it handled our pain with tenderness, respect, and resolve. I didn't think that a book this painful could also be a delight to read.
Some of the essays felt a little abrupt in the way they ended and left me wanting for more, but that didn't make me less happy or grateful to read it.
As someone who was raised in the North East of Mexico, and comes from a family of migrants (within and outside borders), I found myself heard and written about in these pages. I find this book to be one of the most honest narratives of the everyday mourning and the existential grief of those who survived - and witnessed others not surviving - la guerra contra el narco of the 21st century.
This collection of essays makes me feel less alone in my grief, and it handled our pain with tenderness, respect, and resolve. I didn't think that a book this painful could also be a delight to read.
jbraith's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
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