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A review by kiricallaghan
Irkadura by Ksenia Anske
5.0
Healing from trauma is a non-linear ever-continuing process. I did not expect this book to become one of many tools in my collection to aid that process, yet here we are, and I'm still at a loss for words, even after days of letting my thoughts digest.
I was warned I would weep.
But, I did not. I wish it had been that simple.
Reading Irkadura, I felt inspired, and heartbroken. Hollowed out with an old wooden spoon, and frayed at the edges. The sort of sadness where you wish you felt like crying, because then it would release, and be gone. Instead it lingers in you like cold on the bones after standing in the chill too long.
Beautifully ugly.
I didn't find the horrible events described triggering so much as a tool to look at those moments from a distance. Irina's view of her abuse lends the reader a detached point of view to be able to view their own trauma, and while possibly not intentionally, provides a sort of language that eases the difficulty in speaking of it. A set of some kind of linguistic training wheels for those not yet able to muster the strength to speak so bluntly.
Dark, and grim, but laced with threads of hope in places you'd never think to look, it bleeds vulnerability.
In a few months I might read it again.
And maybe then, with my new set of tools and perspective, I'll be able to cry about it.
I was warned I would weep.
But, I did not. I wish it had been that simple.
Reading Irkadura, I felt inspired, and heartbroken. Hollowed out with an old wooden spoon, and frayed at the edges. The sort of sadness where you wish you felt like crying, because then it would release, and be gone. Instead it lingers in you like cold on the bones after standing in the chill too long.
Beautifully ugly.
I didn't find the horrible events described triggering so much as a tool to look at those moments from a distance. Irina's view of her abuse lends the reader a detached point of view to be able to view their own trauma, and while possibly not intentionally, provides a sort of language that eases the difficulty in speaking of it. A set of some kind of linguistic training wheels for those not yet able to muster the strength to speak so bluntly.
Dark, and grim, but laced with threads of hope in places you'd never think to look, it bleeds vulnerability.
In a few months I might read it again.
And maybe then, with my new set of tools and perspective, I'll be able to cry about it.