A review by jayisreading
Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

4.5

It’s always hard to review a memoir, considering how personal it is. For me, at least, it is never the content of what the author chooses to share that is under review. It generally tends to drift towards execution of whatever story it is that they want to share. In the case of Heart Berries, I can tell how much care Mailhot put into sharing such vulnerable aspects of her life, having dealt with so much pain. Considering this, it was such a delight reading her acknowledgments and seeing the absolute joy and support she has for and from her loved ones.

Mailhot thoughtfully writes about various events that occurred during her lifetime, musings of being an Indigenous woman, and white society; all of which were told in a nonlinear fashion. On the note of white society, I found her description of self-esteem being a white invention really profound, especially with her conclusion that it seemed like “identity capitalism.” Mailhot’s comments on what forgiveness meant in her culture and white culture also left an impression on me; how the latter sees it as “letting go,” while the former rejects the idea of framing pain like a problem with a solution.

When it comes to structure, admittedly, I wasn’t a fan of the nonlinear approach at first, but I realized how well it worked in this situation, considering the ways memory and trauma work. These rarely unfold in chronological order and, at least to me, it started to make sense to have the book structured the way it was. The lyricism of Mailhot’s writing ebbed and flowed. The times lyricism didn’t come through, it felt very rough around the edges, but it almost felt intentional. After all, thoughts are never that clean. The narrative wasn’t always easy to follow (and the overall structure being nonlinear doesn’t help), but in a way, I think that challenge is needed and thoughtfully questions what a memoir should be and how they are structured.

Overall, I found this to be a powerful memoir with raw emotions, leaving much for the reader to contemplate in such a short span of pages.
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