emurph1808's review
5.0
this was my second time reading this book and it’s still as haunting? the way he writes, and maybe i am already just lonely, but i can feel in my body the particular brand of loneliness that he speaks of. i loved reading about his experience as a gay person, because i will eat up anything about the gays, but his essays about being an NDN were particularly intriguing to read.
favorite quote: “i had a dream recently in which i was bent backward, my arms perpendicular to the floor. this is how i wander about, i tell her. what others see is out of sync with the interior of my body, which is rarely upright. it sounds to me, she says, like you’re played by a kind of dysphoria with the world. loneliness, i wonder out loud. yes, she answers, yes.”
favorite quote: “i had a dream recently in which i was bent backward, my arms perpendicular to the floor. this is how i wander about, i tell her. what others see is out of sync with the interior of my body, which is rarely upright. it sounds to me, she says, like you’re played by a kind of dysphoria with the world. loneliness, i wonder out loud. yes, she answers, yes.”
jonbot666's review against another edition
4.0
An outstanding work that gave me chills as it paralleled so many of my own queer experiences while open wing an emotional window to another lived history that is so distant from my own.
The text reads like vignettes of life and select memories. Some of them are sad, some are funny and most are in mourning for NDN lives and history that has all been erased. They are complicated emotionally but the prose used to tell these truths are universal. This book will sit with me for some time after closing the cover.
The text reads like vignettes of life and select memories. Some of them are sad, some are funny and most are in mourning for NDN lives and history that has all been erased. They are complicated emotionally but the prose used to tell these truths are universal. This book will sit with me for some time after closing the cover.
scrow1022's review
5.0
How to describe? Overlapping essays (with each other and his poems). Breathing in heartbreak, breathing out hope and strategies of hope.
raeaxela's review
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
You ever read prose so beautiful your insides twist… this is an important and beautiful read.
esabetta's review
4.0
This book blended queer theory and auto-theory so well. The perspective Belcourt gives as an indigenous, queer man on subjects such as love, colonialism, political depression, self discovery and mass trauma is a perspective I am so happy to have examined. Each mini essay captivated my attention and made excellent work of expressing an idea in a succinct way that did not exhaust me with inaccessible theory and dense text. I'm grateful I was able to finally get my hands on this book and take my time reading it.
camillatd's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Incredibly powerful personal essays on queerness, Indigenous/Indigiqueer identities, and the devastating legacy of Canadian colonialism. I was deeply moved and I learned so much!
stierwood's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Theory, memoir, poetry all in one and it all taught me about a million things about being a person in the world