Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Beautiful Country: A Memoir of An Undocumented Childhood by Qian Julie Wang

8 reviews

drlainie's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Xenophobia, Excrement, Vomit, Medical trauma, Classism, and Deportation

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Cancer, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Grief, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Bullying, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Stalking, Abortion, and Death of parent

btwnprintedpgs's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Racism, Sexism, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Bullying, Physical abuse, and Stalking

Minor: Cancer and Infidelity

xeniba's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

I felt this was beautifully written, though difficult to read at times because of the trauma the author experienced. I’m grateful to the author for being so transparent and sharing her story.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, Xenophobia, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

keeganrb's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Racial slurs, and Racism

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Physical abuse

grimviolins's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Racial slurs, Racism, and Vomit

Minor: Physical abuse and Abortion

ellieintherye's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

 

I had to stop reading for 24 hours after finishing this because I wasn't ready to jump into anything new. To do that (like I normally do) would have felt almost obscene — I had to give this memoir the hangover it deserves.

The whole memoir takes place during a 5-year period of time in Wang's life (age 7-12ish) when her folks were trying to make it in America as Chinese immigrants. She suffered numerous consequences of poverty, parental stress and inter-generational trauma. There's no huge "event"; there's no trauma-porn (although, holy shit, this is definitely a traumatic period of her life). It's written as a matter of fact, and you can hear the childhood precociousness in her voice as she writes from her childhood perspective.

Wang is a beautiful writer. Her imagery is perfect at all times, painting pictures of a world that I know nothing about. Yet, somehow, I see it. I understand it, I smell it, I hear it. Truly remarkable. I'd like to say this is the best-written memoir I've ever read. Not only is the story captivating, but seriously, her writing is just that good.

So many memoirs these days really need a SHOCK FACTOR, which makes the whole "I've written a memoir" thing worthwhile. This doesn't rely on that. Instead, this is a slow-ish burn about all the decidedly unbeautiful things about Mei Guo, aka Beautiful Country, aka, America, but all the small, life-saving pleasures too: a Tomagatchi, a kitten, a bite of greasy pizza, a Hello Kitty pencil. It's carefully constructed, perfectly paced, and edited to include just the right amount of information to back up her astute observations of immigrant life in the American mid-90s.

Not only do I highly, highly recommend reading this, I recommend it on audiobook especially. Wang includes many, many Mandarin words and definitions, which adds another layer of beauty to the story. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse

brdoyle08's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

thebookwormkatie's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

 

Thank you to @netgalley and @doubleday books for an advanced readers copy of this memoir. 

 

Part of me wanted to hold off on reviewing this simply because I’m still digesting it, but the other half of me decided I will probably continue to think about it for a while. 

 

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang pulls the reader into the life of seven-year-old Qian, an undocumented child living in New York City. I think what made this memoir powerful was reading about her life through the eyes of a child; seeing how America appeared to Qian, how her parents interacted with one another, how impactful their words and actions were on Qian, and especially Qian’s experience in school. The educator in me was heartbroken at many of the experiences Qian had in school. The human in me was heartbroken at many of Qian’s experiences in life. 

 

I really enjoy reading memoirs because I love having a glimpse into other people’s lives and experiences. This memoir was no different. I found myself longing to read more about Qian’s life at the end of the book. It was heartbreaking, educating, and extremely vulnerable. I would recommend this memoir not only if you like memoirs, but simply to allow yourself the opportunity to learn from someone else’s perspective and experience. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Xenophobia, and Vomit

Minor: Physical abuse