Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls

9 reviews

msrumphius's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Violence, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abandonment, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Moderate: Death, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Dementia, Medical trauma, and Suicide attempt

emelynreads's review

emotional informative sad

4.0

I most appreciate this story for the artwork and the Chinese history. It's very internal, a lot of working through complex emotions and trauma, especially depicted in the last third of the book. 

The 'cowboy alternative identity' is an interesting one that kind of took me by surprise. All the adventures the author gets up to while avoiding her family sound super interesting and maybe we'll see more of that in a future book. I'd be very interested in reading more about her time as a chef in the arctic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Torture, Violence, and War

Moderate: Grief

Minor: Animal death, Self harm, Suicide, and Cannibalism

amris's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Mental illness, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Dementia, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Colonisation

Moderate: Racism, Rape, Self harm, Medical content, Medical trauma, and War

Minor: Child death, Misogyny, Blood, Cannibalism, and Abortion

shay43geek's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful inspiring sad tense slow-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Infidelity, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Pregnancy

dittotrainer's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, and War

jayisreading's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

In this powerful graphic memoir with a unique art style, Tessa Hulls takes a deep dive into the complexities of history, immigration, generational trauma, and healing in her family. I admit that I didn’t expect such a deeply nuanced look into these themes in a graphic memoir, especially with how Hulls weaves together all these complex ideas to show the ramifications of significant turmoil in twentieth-century China on the generations after those who went through said turmoil. I also really appreciated how Hulls takes a close look into how mental illness was approached in her family, as well as its deep ties to trauma and memory. There was a refreshing frankness to this approach that I feel isn’t as widely discussed among the Asian diaspora (though this is definitely changing).

This book also had me thinking a lot about what was passed down to me—one of the first in my family to be born in the United States—and how I had/have to contend with similar disconnects and traumas that Hulls (as well as her mother) went through. Most (if not all) go unspoken, and there’s often a kind of loneliness in having to deal with them on your own. However, finding community makes a world of a difference, as Hulls aptly pointed out when she found her safe space. With all that said, I found myself having to read this book very slowly because there was just a lot of information and thoughts to sit with; I did appreciate every detailed page though. (I will admit that one small criticism I have is that some pages just had too much information, so much that it occasionally made it difficult to make sense of the bigger picture.)

All-in-all, this is a graphic memoir well worth picking up for how informative and reflective it is, and it will especially hit close to home if you also have a similar background as Hulls.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Racism, Grief, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Moderate: Confinement, Self harm, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Addiction, Rape, Dementia, Cannibalism, Abortion, and Murder

jade13's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective relaxing tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Genocide, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Murder, Colonisation, and War

Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, and Death of parent

bookhex's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad

4.75

Thank you MCD Books for the gifted copy! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness

Moderate: Suicide and Suicide attempt

christinesreads's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Dementia, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent