Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir

Dear Senthuran is beautifully written, extraordinarily intimate, and covers a lot of ground: spiritedness + spiritual life, gender, mental health, childhood, career, fame, interpersonal relationships, navigating life amidst humanity. Extraordinary & like nothing I've ever read before (though those who've read Freshwater will certainly find some familiar content here); also a very difficult read - I'm sure I've forgotten some relevant content warnings.

Content Warnings

starrysteph's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring slow-paced

4.5

Reread July 2024: Even better on a reread - and so much more stood out to me now that I've read all of their books, including Little Rot.

Agonizingly relatable. Unapologetic. Their prose is SO good and illuminates so much of my own life and brain.

Chills the whole way through. Grateful that I'm here at the same time they are publishing books.

---

Beautiful. Deeply poetic, deeply vulnerable, and deeply illuminating.

Having already read most of Emezi's work, this memoir gave me a lot of clarity around the concepts explored in their books (specifically Freshwater).

CW: suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts, transphobia, rape, sexual assault, mental illness, medical content, dysphoria, grief, infidelity, toxic relationship, chronic illness, self harm

Content Warnings

savvylit's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

4.5

Dear Senthuran's epistolary format allows readers an incredibly personal glimpse into Emezi's relationships and fascinating life. Letter after letter, one thing quickly becomes clear: Emezi is unabashedly talented, passionate, joyful, and in love with their chosen family. They do also suffer, though, and this memoir intimately explores their past depression and suicidal ideation. That juxtaposition between the lowest lows and their joys is what really demonstrates Emezi's resiliency and dedication to living their life authentically.

Furthermore, beyond the powerful subject matter of Dear Senthuran, this memoir is absolutely brimming with unforgettable sentences. My own words can't do their words justice. Thus, here are a few quotes from Dear Senthuran:

"If just this terrified you - the tip of a feather - how am I supposed to open up entire wings?"

"What is love if not a shield thrown up around you when you are too injured to throw it up yourself?"

"People can do such spectacular things if you forget to tell them it's impossible. I want them to try."

"Part of bending the world we want into existence is that we get to choose who we want to be in it with, and I choose you."

Content Warnings

criticalgayze's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Y'all, Emezi will do it and then do it again. A world of worlds live inside of their head, and they produce with the efficiency of an assembly-line author, yet each book is whole and unique and rejuvenating. Emezi lifts up the Queer in all the facets that the word can encompass and leaves a sense of refresh and enlightenment in their wake.

Even more affecting here for the artist and art-inclined among us, Emezi gives a sense of transparency that is often lacking in the business of the arts that can feel so intimidating, especially to historically marginalized creators. To that end, Emezi weaves in a level of knowledge and advice that is reminiscent of such workbook memoirs as You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero and Minority Leader by Stacey Abrams.

This work also bolsters what I have come to find about my own reading life. What seems to leave the greatest impact on me as a reader are works of memoir, auto-, and experimental fiction by Queer creators. Works that Queer the space of writing while being Queer themselves, and works that peel back the exterior and interior process of creation that help me access that space within myself. (Now to take Emezi's advice and start letting that inspire, instead of intimidate!)

Quotes:
I tell him that my search for somewhere to be is really a search for self, and the only self I feel at home with is one that doesn't exist, not anymore, one that's bee taken apart, whipped into dust. (2)
The magician tells me that other people can't do what I do, and maybe I believe him a little, but that's not the point. People can do such spectacular things if you forget to tell them it's impossible. I want them to try. (22)
Illusions are the best things to burn, I think, but some people consider such fires to be threats, and those who start them even worse. (24)
People would read Freshwater and speculate about what my career would have looked like after starting with a book so bold. I would be less of a threat, they wouldn't hesitate to call the book what it was - not the way they do when you're alive and young, Black and pretty and fucking talented, and you don't pretend like you don't know all of this. (30)
I am, at once, the person most bent on my death and the person most successful at keeping me alive; even the devil won't take me. (44)
So, you could just show a terrible thing and let the showing be the strength of it? I thought it was brilliant. (77)
'I stood at the border, stood at the edge, and claimed it as central,' you said, your voice weighted with intent. 'Claimed it as central and let the rest of the world move over to where I was.' (77)
You should see my centers, Ms. Morrison. They're glorious. They pull with the force of a planet and I'm patient; it's only a matter of time. (80)
The rules are clear, no matter the stakes: when anyone fucks with the work, burn them to the ground. (87)
Everything advances, mutates, we are in new worlds constantly (154)
It gets so ugly, this thing of punishing other for prioritizing their well-being over reassuring insecurities. (206)
It's never too late - that's a human lie of time, there is no late, there is mostly now because now is so flexible, I find. You can change a whole life, a whole world, inside of a now. (213)
'You write when you are most fragile, because you're changing from one form to another. These transformations and transmutations that take place - it has to be painful.' (227)

Content Warnings

liaandersson's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

I love everything Akwaeke Emezi writes. They are such a phenomenal writer, I want every book they have ever written. I am transpired to a new dimension and I see life through their eyes - it's terrifying, beautiful, inspiring, saddening, and so many emotions at once. It feels weird writing a review on somebody's memoir, so I will simply say that this book was yet another literary masterpiece by Emezi, while we were afforded the opportunity to get to know them better on the way. Thank you for this book!

Content Warnings

readingthroughinfinity's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.75

This is the most unique, compelling memoir I've read in many years. Through letters to their close friends and family, Akwaeke Emezi discusses their experience of being trans and getting surgery, their mental health, writing, chronic pain, the publishing industry, their identity as a god or ogbanje, and their spiritual connection with this world and with death. This is a fascinating read and one that introduced me to so many new concepts and ideas. Emezi really is a transcendent writer.

Content Warnings

ashlyn's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional slow-paced

4.0

Content Warnings

More...