Heart Berries

Whoa does this woman have a way with words. I would have been highlighting with reckless abandon except for the fact I read this on Kindle, and tapping sentences to save them just doesn't have the same effect.

That said, this was ... not a difficult read, really, just one that you had to really pay attention to in order to understand what Mailhot was trying to say. She talks to “you” (her eventual husband, Casey) a lot, the timeline jumps all over the place, and she talks a lot about the ghosts that haunt her, and it's easy to get lost. She's had a hard life, but also struggles with thinking that she is too much, that her suffering is not worth what she feels it is, that other people don't value her because she's so irredeemably broken. I don't think that's a self-esteem issue – because she's clearly a talented writer – so much as that her life has crushed and pulverized her such that she feels worthless. That's so hard to read.

3.5 stars

TW: depression, suicidal ideation, sexual assault, pregnancy