Reviews

Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

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razzberry_pi's review against another edition

challenging emotional tense fast-paced

4.75

really interesting both from a memoir/experience perspective but also as a vision of Toronto activism in the 90s/00s before I was born and how different it was pre-gentrification

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moh's review against another edition

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5.0

This is the third book by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha I've read, and each of them is so great that I kept tearing up while I was reading, just out of pure joy that these books exist.

alaynacyan's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

"It all falls apart, and then it is a miracle. We don't understand it. We make the same mistakes over and over again."

A vulnerable story of abuse and fighting to carve out a path forward for oneself. Leah navigates queerness, mixed race identity, disability, poverty, immigration, complicated family history, and imperfect community to ultimately create a life full of love and possibility.

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saanaayrora's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative sad tense fast-paced

4.0

puttingwingsonwords's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

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cephaloverlord's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.0

This book is a mix of poetry and prose, which was a little too much for my non-poetry brain, but I dedinitely found it a nice challenge. It was difficult to follow at parts because she jumped around a lot and I have zero context for her life. Overall, a challenging memior with a great message.