smfernandes 's review for:

Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

4.0

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Terese Marie Mailhot’s memoir, Heart Berries, is a beautiful punch to the heart. Every sentence and vignette is pure poetry but the pain of the author as she navigates her mental health, her abuse, her heartaches as a woman and mother and the voices of her Indigenous ancestors is gripping. Yet the joy or power of her writing maintains a sense of hope for this strong, gifted writer. The experience of this book – the prose, the short length, the heartbreak, the waiting for a man, the international pain – reminded me so much of Elizabeth Smart’s stunning prose poetry novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept from the 1940s. These are both two books that will stay on my shelf.