From the Ashes

Jesse's writing is magnetic and his story's intense. Facing racism and bullying and dropping out of school in grief is the faint overlap I've lived. I thought about when a friend from Turkey told me that he was never bullied growing up—because the school system was so oppressive it was always students against teachers. Whether those in power are nakedly so or cloaked in misdirection, and while humans new and old haven't stopped scrabbling to be at the top of corrupt hills, there is healing power in sharing stories of rising up and breaking free of narratives of dominance. I am especially hopeful about new models of masculinity.

Incidentally I wasn't expecting a chilling link to Jagmeet Singh's family story.

This was such an intense memoir. Jesse Thistle had a rough life, and from him to go from where he was to where he is now is astounding. It's a short, easy read that will make you think about the people who slip through the cracks. I do wish that Jesse had been more introspective throughout, though. He got a little introspective at the end, but he spent most of the book being awful to his family, friends, and strangers. While it's obvious he regrets his behavior, he doesn't spend any time dwelling on any of it. I mean, his grandparents shun him and I honestly thought they went above and beyond trying to help him, and Jesse the teenager was being a huge ass to everyone around them, and he never really reconciles with his culpability with this. (I understand his childhood trauma is a BIG reason he was like this. But trauma doesn't give people an out to be consistently awful to the people who love them, and even though he was a teenager, Jesse the author never owns up to his end, either).

His writing style was a little rough, but highly effective. I personally dislike when memoirs do really early child years with very vivid detail, and this one did that too, but it worked better than normal because his childhood was pretty awful, making me think these specific instances were burned into his memory. But other than those early chapters, I thought he was brutally honest and Jesse is incredibly resilient to go through all that he did and decide to turn his life back around and graduate school.

My complaints, though, are nitpicks to an incredible story. Highly recommend.