its_j's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective relaxing fast-paced

4.75


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jasperr's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense

5.0


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dtierra's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.75


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florecita_lectora's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

4.25


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sjanke2's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

2.25

 
This collection started strong and waned from there. The ones I enjoyed are the only ones I remember (Alexander Chee and Alexander Chee). I wonder if each contributor got to pick the narrator who would read their piece, as I didn't care for a couple of the voices.

 

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katieammon27's review

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reflective sad slow-paced

3.0


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shoohoob's review

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dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

4.5

I really liked this. It made me reflect on my own relationship with my mom, and how to be okay with where it is. The last essay in particular really hit home for me. I would love to see another volume of this with a few younger authors (more millennial or gen-z) because I sometimes found it hard to relate to the older authors. Overall, great read. 

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meemawreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring medium-paced

4.0

I hesitated to start 2022 with a post about a downer, but that’s not really what this book is. It contains immense pain - warnings for many mentions of suicidal ideation, substance use, and many kinds of abuse - but it also contains immense healing. Each person who contributed to this collection did hard healing work in order to be able to write about these estrangements and catastrophes. There’s also immense love and forgiveness in them. 
We put mothers on this pedestal… we make motherhood nearly compulsory but then dehumanize mothers so that if they’re not perfectly nurturing and perfectly selfless and perfectly content in motherhood, they’re monsters. I love the care many of these writers took to show understanding that their moms are just people, too. 
I don’t recommend this book generally but specifically: read only if you’re experienced holding strangers’ pain without harm to yourself. Four taters 🥔🥔🥔🥔/🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔

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miarconnell's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

3.5


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