Heart Berries

A Memoir

paperback, 160 pages

Published April 9, 2019 by Counterpoint.

ISBN:
978-1-64009-160-3
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3 stars (1 review)

A powerful, poetic memoir of a woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder; Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma.

5 editions

Review of 'Heart Berries' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Please don’t read my review: I’m male. I’m also too old, too unfeeling insensitive hardhearted uncultured. My opinion is not worth your time: I write it for future me, noone else.

I can see some of the appeal: Mailhot’s sentences are often exquisite. But ultimately the story just didn’t do it for me: I get it, a little: I know some people blindly chase physical passion as a way to escape their pain; that they make babies as a way to grasp onto a failing relationship (spoiler: this tends not to work out so well). I know that people fight and yell at each other and create drama instead of reaching out and listening. It’s just that, well, this isn’t that new a story. I know that Mailhot’s suffering is genuine and deep; I feel great compassion for her, and admiration for her courage. May her success ease her pain.