Heart Berries

Oof, my heart. HEART BERRIES by Terese Marie Mailhot has this immense power to it. In just 160 pages Mailhot examines her life with a rawness that leaps off the pages. 
 
Content warnings: sexual assault, sexual abuse of a child, suicidal ideation, self harm, PTSD. 
 
I could neatly summarize it as an exploration of Indigenous identity, mental health and mental illness, dating outside of one's race, and complex motherhood but that would be pretty reductionist of me. Mailhot's writing first calls on the trauma of existence, of being an Indigenous person, of being a woman and then what it is to face that trauma and make choices that wind and twist around that trauma. I'm not a parent (by choice) but there are some truly heartbreaking moments when Mailhot talks about her firstborn being taken from her custody on the same day her second child was born. Definitely steel yourself for some tough walks down memory lane. 
 
Most of my reads recently have either been EXTREMELY HARD or lighthearted and fun. This is as you can imagine, one of the former. I've already talked about how paltry my Indigenous reading has been this year, but I also realized one of my gaps is in not having read much Indigenous memoir.