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whattaylorreads's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Racism and Xenophobia
Minor: Addiction
caidyn's review
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
4.0
I've had this book on my radar for a long time, but finally was in the mood to read it. It's a memoir, but more like a series of interconnected essays. Toni Jensen tells her stories, as well as the story of Indigenous people in America and just the world around us. At times, it was a difficult read because of the nature of the stories, but they were all so well written and pertinent to what's going on today and what's gone on since America came to be. Highly recommend it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racism, Sexual assault, and Xenophobia
thebookteaseblog's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
This memoir in essays reminded me so much of another favorite: I am, I am, I am by Maggie O'Farrell. Both are stunningly, poetically written, with a focus on extraordinary and everyday brushes with death. Jensen is a born storyteller, someone whose curiosity about language and the effects of words comes through clearly in her writing. I fell head over heels for her narrative style from the first page. It feels overly simplistic to describe Carry as a book about violence - it is about that, it's true, but Carry is also about family, and place, and survival. It puts what's happening in (to use Jensen's refrain, our America) in a larger context. In her essays, she reminds us that as long as this country chooses to view gun violence as a problem that cannot be solved, as something that just is, that the violence against Black and Indigenous people, the violence against women and children, the countless almosts, the too-many-to-name violent acts that are carried out every day will continue. She reminds us that we cannot untangle the threads of the violence against animals and the violence against women, the violence of the past and the violence of the present, the everyday violence and the headline making violence, the violence of the individual and the violence of the government, because it is all connected. I hope that one day people will look back on stories like those in Carry and they will seem unrecognizable. In the meantime, they are an anthem, a warning, a question.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Trafficking, Violence, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Sexual assault, Animal cruelty, and Xenophobia
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