Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

28 reviews

jammmbi's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Deep, reflective, and tough to process but something I’m glad I read. I went on an emotional and reflective journey reading this memoir, and it had me taking a moment to reflect on my own relationships with trauma, with grief, with shame, with pain, and brutal honesty with myself. 

Quotes that stick with me:

“If transgressions were all bad, people wouldn’t do them. Do you consider me a transgression?”

“Feel culpable in my insanity because you are partly to blame.” 

“At thirty-two, I was a child, a victim of something.” 

“The right love is an adhesive.” 

“I am not too ugly for this world.” 

“This story is yours, culprit of my pain. Which one of us is asking for mercy?” 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Abandonment

theboricuabookworm's review against another edition

Gripping and raw. The lyrical way Mailhot writes about pain and trauma and grief will leave you gasping.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Classism

leweylibrary's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.25

I'm struggling to rate this one because I don't feel like I have adequate words to do so?

I struggled with the format--or lack thereof really--and the audiobook narrator. I actually got like 35% through and then had to restart it waaaaay slower because I was finding myself missing things and not paying attention. I definitely think I would've done better with it reading it physically, there are just way too many poetic moments and literary devices at work for me to track on audio. I'm grateful for the Q&A style afterwords because it did clear up some of what the author was attempting to do. Like I now have a greater appreciation for the work she put into making her writing seem simple and punchy when while reading it, it mostly just felt jarring and hard to follow or stay invested in. 

The topics covered are obviously intense. Big trigger warnings for a lot. Covering them is absolutely vital to her story, though, and her journey towards reconciliation and healing.

Overall, I can tell it was brilliant, it just wasn't totally for me in this format. And that's okay and doesn't detract from the skill it took to write it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Grief, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Abandonment

eve81's review against another edition

challenging dark sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Colonisation

stevia333k's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

3.5

usually I consider Adrienne Rich references to be an immediate DNF & didn't do so this time because it was only cited as an inspiration at the very end. In fact, the blurb my library gave in retrospect is basically trying to spin the Andrienne Rich influence -- that being said, besides some squicks, it was decent.

So this is by an author who wanted to challenge expectations about works written by indigenous authors. (I didn't pick up on how besides various marketable narratives -- i mean this in the way that both karl marx & the austrian school of economics are considered "controversial".)

Anyways, I read the book on the basis of family building & decolonization. The part about forgiveness being done in ceremonies instead of the white idea of "letting go", especially since I've struggled with that colonial dynamic too, except as a white settler I didn't have established ceremonies for context.

Admittedly I was kind of indifferent to the poetics I guess. The intersections were interesting enough.

in the interview at the end, there's 2 notes about influences on this book that the author mentions that explained the squicks I had with this book: 
- the bible (which went over my head because I'm not a Christian), 
- and Adrienne Rich (I already returned my copy of this book to the library & it was an audiobook, but the way the word "man" was used felt heteronormative & that "patriarchal" could've worked better. Like I think I figured it out via like argument from analogy with like settler vs indigenous & the fact she's mainly talking about 1 man in particular, but the lack of precision felt suspicious to me, and it turned out I was right.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Colonisation

spicycheesecake's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.75

Such a beautiful book. The writing is amazing, and the story being told is so captivating. I was immediately pulled in from the first page, and felt emotional the whole ride through.

There are many things I could not relate with, but I understood everything, and I felt like I was there -- spectating, watching, experiencing.

I've learned about myself and my own relationships just from seeing the perspectives in this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Abandonment

Moderate: Abortion

solenodon's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

4.5

Intense and poetic — will be re reading at some point. Trigger warning for sure 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Racism, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Incest, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Vomit, Abortion, and Sexual harassment

stagasaurus's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Colonisation

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Confinement, Eating disorder, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Abortion, and Abandonment

honeyvoiced's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Eating disorder, Mental illness, and Abandonment

Moderate: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Rape and Violence

seeceeread's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad

💭 "Séliš stories are a lot like its art: sparse and interested in blank space; the work must be striking."

This is a torrent. Relentless, stream-of-conscious nonsequiturs circle back to each other. The book is a menacing bath of tales:

assault and need and love and violence and therapy and mothering and child separation and tenderness and despair and and and

. Mailhot seems to want to purge the hurt, to exorcise her uncertainty by naming: she has felt, craved, demanded, retreated. 

I winced to witness, to relive so intimately all that has sliced her.

The author nicks as she tells us of the small ladder she carved into her arm while pregnant.

Like her girlhood self, we are coaxed and cornered into small spaces with the grotesque, wondering if it's safe to speak, to look away. I wanted to hold her at times, a quiet listener as an irregular heartbeat sang of heartache. At others, I wanted to run away, to commit violence against her selfish lover and to snap her into nonchalance. These whiplashes of emotion and intention mirror hers, further evidence she submerged me.

💭 "The tips of your fingers felt like wet grapes. I wanted to bite every one."

Expect to be nipped.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Colonisation, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Colonisation, and Classism