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okiecozyreader's review against another edition
5.0
“To live in paradise is to be reminded how little you can afford it.” Ch 2
“There was more than one way to be lost, more than one way to be saved. While my mother had saved me from the waves and gave me breath, my father tried to save me only by suffocation…” ch 4
“There is an unspoken understanding of loss here in Jamaica, where everything comes with a rude bargain—that being citizens of a “developing nation,” we are born already expecting to live a secondhand life, and to enjoy it. But there is hope, too, in our scarcity, tolerable because it keeps us constantly reaching for something better.” Ch 5
“We pushed our heavy boulders up the same punishing hill, passing each other and pretending we were alone in our misery. We each carried our weight in silence until it consumed us, collapsing, as all things must, into a black hole. One Saturday afternoon I decided to let that boulder go. Let it crush me if it must.” Ch 16
Graphic: Child abuse, Drug use, and Infidelity
fkshg8465's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Cancer, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
adawada's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Suicide attempt, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and Abandonment
Minor: Drug use
lcg527's review
5.0
Graphic: Body shaming, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence
internationalreads's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Pregnancy
Minor: Miscarriage
not_another_ana's review against another edition
4.0
After more than nineteen years, my father still could not see me. To him, nothing I wrote would ever matter. Poetry was the voice I had forged because for so long I had been voiceless; I had written every word because I wanted him to hear me. Now I knew he never would.
I find it tricky to cast judgement on a memoir. How can I sit here and judge what happens when it's not just plot but someone's actual life and experience, it feels voyeuristic. At the same time the author is handing me their life on a platter, is asking me to come and see and experience. In How to Say Babylon Safiya Sinclair presents us the story of her life growing up in Jamaica under the control of a domineering abusive father who used Rastafarianism to control and terrorize the family. We're taken on this journey to her childhood, her struggles and how she persevered and became an award winning poet. She also explains what Rastafarianism is, how it got started, what are the practices and beliefs, and how that affected her.
I could not put this down, I read it in four days. The prose is beautiful and fluid, you could probably infer her background as a poet. If you don't enjoy purple prose, this might not be a good fit for you, for me it worked because I felt like I was right there in her head with her as the events happened. And boy did things happen to her, this is a book that deals with such complex and heart wrenching abuse. Verbal abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, spiritual abuse, at times it felt so heavy and anxiety inducing. I was at a roller coaster right before the drop, or a balloon inflating with no sign of stopping and then... Well the drop didn't happen, the balloon never popped.
That was my only real issue with the book. The pacing brught us to this dazzling height only to gently let us down. To me it felt like perhaps she could have waited to write this memoir, there were a lot of painful memories she had to face and put to paper and the more recent ones just didn't come across as robust as the past. By this I mean I felt like she's too close to the point in time where her book ends to have been able to pull it apart and analyze it, process it. There's a lot of silence at the end, like the story was cherry-picked in some spots.
Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Religious bigotry, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Cursing, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Colonisation
your_true_shelf's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Domestic abuse
Moderate: Drug use, Infidelity, Racism, Sexual assault, Violence, Death of parent, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation
Minor: Animal death
cnlarge's review against another edition
4.5
Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence
asiadb's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Child abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Misogyny, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
corinth113's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Bullying and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Drug use, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Self harm, and Sexual assault