Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - My Work

What Ravn has done here is quite impressive. Utilizing a variety of writing styles and techniques that force readers to confront the uncomfortable truths about childbirth and motherhood, the narrator brings to light some daunting questions about identity. While there are many undeniably striking prose and sentiments throughout, I can’t help but think that the structure of “My Work” ultimately distracts from the story being told. About halfway through, I had a feeling that I knew where the book was heading and unfortunately I was correct. If you have read works like Nettel’s “Still Born”, or Kawakami’s “Breasts and Eggs”, you might know what I’m getting at here.. I do not think this is a must read by any means but I did enjoy my time spent with it. This is not a book that will work for everyone but as far as experimental writing goes, I would say Ravn succeeded in crafting a piece of writing worth exploring.

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dark reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

There are strong passages in this book and situations and thoughts to dwell on. The rawness and the insanity of the situation of carrying and bearing another human being is portrayed in a way that confronts the reader with their own expectations and prejudices.

As much as I was into a lot of the reflections the book presents, it somehow often kept me at a distance and in some parts it even lost me a bit. But this is something Ravn herself is fully aware of and questions in the book if that is going to happen.

So if this was done on purpose, because the author/Anna feels like she is not really a part of this world anymore, after becoming a mother, I can't tell.

Everything is very meta, which I personally enjoyed.
But although I'm a poetry lover, I could have done without the poems, because for me, they didn't add anything to the testimony of the story.

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