Salka

Part professional memoir, part advocacy apple crate pitch, part self-promo, this engaging book by paediatrician Nadine Burke Harris chronicles her work in linking science around developmental trauma and lifelong health outcomes with applied practice as a doctor and health professional. It's a must read for any health professional, regardless of your familiarity with ACEs or the physiology of the stress response.

Burke-Harris' occasional venture into that tenor of self promotion common to American entrepreneurism is not too invasive and can be seen as a creature of the environment she campaigned within.

This was an engaging enough read. Appropriate for ages 8 & 9 up I'd say. I was interested to discover that it was published 4 years after the release of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle. I feel like Wynne Jones has definitely taken inspiration from the film in this follow-up to the original 2 books that pre-date (& differ from ) the film. There is a character that is somewhat like Heen, as well as Markl, and visits to the royal palace. Howl also features in disguise at the palace as a cute blonde, curly haired boy, just like in the film. I felt somewhat uncomfortable with the characters of the “kobolds” who seemed to be inspired by the houseelves from Harry Potter but without any riposte to the paternalistic/supremacist undertones of servitude. There was some surprising Alien-esque body-horror in the Lubbock's laying of eggs in bodies. With the lubbock / lubbockins too, I do get a bit antsy with the problematic plot device of characterizing a whole species as evil. And the implications of interspecies offspring as evil. That's a bit sucks teeth for me.

I felt this book addressed some of the problems I had with Conversations With Friends; some of what mas missing from the latter, was present here, namely addressing gender power dynamics and adding a contrasting narrative voice.
Rooney somehow manages to communicate a very specific type of internal female voice that I haven't seen brought to life so vividly before.
I do feel like the only aspect of her writing that sits uncomfortably with me is that she writes as someone who hasn't moved through or transcended these experiences yet; she's still in them. The perspective is valuable and utterly absorbing, but I wanted the characters to grow beyond their experiences in a more profound way.
One niggle that persisted on from Conversations with Friends, is just an overwhelming vibe of middle class whiteness and fake-wokeness (the handling of class issues is kind of heavy-handed). There doesn't seem to be an authorial awareness of this either, nor the characters' inability to strive for anything other than a vaguely conservative BoBo mediocrity.

The voice of the narrator, her character, sense of humour, worldview, & her connection to & love for her community are so strong in this tale of Gandhian satyagraha & Congress' efforts at swaraj come to small-town South India. Our narrator - an older aunty of the village of Kanthapura - is the perfect voice to communicate the experience of this time for everyday rural Indians, and her story unfolds as if she is relating a series of events to us, perhaps acquaintances or family of a neighbouring village. Those with an interest or familiarity with the history will perhaps get more out of it, as there are many layers of tradition, cultural practice, & politics to process, but there is a handy glossary of cultural terms for the less familiar. An immersive & wonderfully captivating read.

Very readable and engaging, surprisingly dark. I enjoyed the portrayal of the counselling/therapy and found it realistic. Autism is never mentioned in this book, yet the main charactor Eleanor certainly has recognisable autistic traits, particularly literal thinking, alexithymia, and preference for routine. Yet I found this portrayal to verge on stereotypical tropes at times, and what behaviours were trauma and what was neurodivergence were very blurred sometimes. This might not be an issue in itself except for the fact that when Eleanor was shown to recover from trauma, some of her autistic behaviours were written away and she began to camouflage more and try to “fit in”. This was depicted as a good thing, a sign she was healing getting better, like the autistic traits were a sign of ill-health. So yeah, didn't feel comfortable on that one. But I did like the depiction of the slow and gradual building of connection, gradual trust, interest and opening up after trauma. That was very real and beautiful.