Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Seeing Ghosts by Kat Chow

14 reviews

woolgatherer's review

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

Seeing Ghosts was a beautiful and poignant memoir that invited the reader into Chow's journey through grief. As much as this memoir was an homage of sorts to her late mother, it was also one that reflected on family dynamics—particularly between Chow and her father—as well as honoring one's family history and culture. Grief certainly was at the center of this memoir, but there was also an abundance of care and love that permeated throughout the pages. Chow demonstrates how one can still find hope even in times of darkness.

I was familiar with Chow's work from her time with NPR's Code Switch, and her wonderful storytelling really shone in this memoir in a way that honored her family, history, and culture. I also appreciated the insight of growing up in Connecticut in an Asian immigrant household, which had its own challenges. (On this note, I am all for more Asian American New Englanders writing about their lived experiences, haha.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Grief, Medical content, Cancer, and Death of parent

Moderate: Racism

Minor: Suicide

noveltay's review against another edition

fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death of parent, Animal death, Grief, and Racism

kailey_reads's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Child death

moonbebe722's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Terminal illness, and Cancer

Moderate: Child death, Racism, Miscarriage, and Police brutality

bookishcori's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

memoir about grief, involving layers of intergenerational loss and stifling of all that’s left unspoken. Unsurprisingly, I loved this one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death of parent, and Child death

Moderate: Racism

caseythereader's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective slow-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death of parent, Medical content, Child death, Death, Grief, and Animal death

Moderate: Racism

odrib's review against another edition

reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Death, Grief, Death of parent, and Cancer

Moderate: Police brutality, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Infertility

berleyreads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent and Grief

ekmook's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Cancer, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Racism

inkedinpages's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

Chow's memoir, Seeing Ghosts, tells her experience with grief and loss throughout her childhood and into her adult life. Starting with the loss of her mother at a young age, Chow sees the world through the lens of grieving. In her memoir, she writes about the impact of loss on relationships and highlights the differences in how people experience it.

My thoughts:
I must admit, this one took a little longer than I usually like to grab my attention. But, once it did, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Chow writes in such a brilliant way; alternating between letters to her mother, her own thoughts, conversations with her father. Because of this writing style, I felt like I was reckoning with the losses I have experienced in my personal life right along side her. The differences in the family dynamics as they attempted to process was so fascinating. Dad set about doing, and in doing that he appeared to be avoiding a lot of the time. Kat set about feeling, and doing that, it appeared she would never heal from the loss. Her sister set about caretaking, and in doing so appeared to be more controlled in her grief.

I am huge fan of the memoir genre. This is a memoir that not only tells the story of the author but also forces the reader to think about their own experiences right alongside of the writer. This is a story that I will be thinking about for months and years to follow.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death of parent, and Racial slurs