Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Yo Sé Por Qué Canta El Pájaro Enjaulado by Maya Angelou

3 reviews

theelliad's review against another edition

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3.5

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is Maya Angelou’s autobiography, exploring the challenges and triumphs of her life. 

This was required reading for my module last year and despite really enjoying what I read of it, I never got round to reading the full book until now. Angelou’s writing is so beautiful and captivating, especially when read by herself, I literally had to finish this in one sitting! I’m not typically a non-fiction reader and so the narrative exploration and descriptive attention to detail felt as immersive and entertaining as any fiction. Her coming to terms with herself, her trauma and the struggles of those around her is made both painful and relatable even for those who have never or will never experience the things she did. This is a case study in self writing and Angelou truly is someone to be studied and remembered. I don’t however understand the purpose of making an autobiography 7 <200 books? Perhaps that is just how storygraph classifies it but this book alone definitely didn’t feel complete which was annoying, I would happily have endured a longer cohesive piece instead of having to spread the reading across multiple books. (note post finishing: apparently there is audio editions of all 7 in one so that’s my bad i just didn’t realise it had 7 parts so didn’t think to look) Overall an enjoyable read :))

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wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.75

Difficult to read, but in the way that it challenges how you think about things.

In particular this made me consider the times it took place during, the "good ole days" and how shitty they were for a lot people.  I make it a habit to not read much about a book before I pick it up to give everything a fair chance and the reason why I picked those one up was because I saw it on a list of commonly banned books.  While it contains some mature(-ish) content, it is much tamer than many things I read as a youth and the value of showing other-ing on a personal degree is unmatched.
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michaelion's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

4.25

One thing that makes it hard to get through nonfiction is that it is often pure and objective fact, nothing but hard statements and the evidence to back it up, but Angelou writes in a way that doesn't just feel the way a memoir / autobiography would, like someone telling their life story, but in a way that is colorful and bright and fluid like fiction usually is. Well, good fiction at least.

And on a personal note a lot of moments hit a little tew close to home. I'm not gonna list them but not me and Miss Dr Angelou living the same life having the same experiences feeling the same feelings!!! I had to put the book down a couple times and cover my face!!!
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