Such gorgeous and vivid imagery of a landscape continually changing and unfortunately vanishing, through the eyes of a human rights lawyer who likes tSuch gorgeous and vivid imagery of a landscape continually changing and unfortunately vanishing, through the eyes of a human rights lawyer who likes to take long long walks through the hills and valleys of Palestine.
What struck me most was how effortlessly the author combines stunning descriptions of nature with a sharp and cutting commentary on the politics that's slowly destroying that very nature. Also, that last anecdote where the author shares a hashish pipe with a young Israeli settler hit me hard....more
All the stars for making me cry and for the gorgeous prose! I read this over a month, slowly savoring it and also tabbed like crazy, here are some linAll the stars for making me cry and for the gorgeous prose! I read this over a month, slowly savoring it and also tabbed like crazy, here are some lines I saved, so think of this as a review in quotes.
"The word madness is literary, philosophical, capacious. We know it can be romantic in literature and wretched in life."
"...we don't get to choose our obsessions, and really, who says that thinking about Shakespeare or botany or quantum physics is more valuable than thinking about what it means to live in a body."
"It gets worse before it gets better: this can mean so many things, including the possibility of getting so much worse that you won't get better. There was that. There were so many who did not get better."
"...I was ill equipped to cope with life's challenges...I think I was a patient in part because I couldn't cope with many tiny daily boring things, all crucial to getting through a day --- I couldn't ask for help, or keep a friend, or tell myself it would be okay. I couldn't get over myself."
"What is madness if not the horror of being misunderstood, of being unable to make a self comprehensible to another?"
"After all, it's not about getting it out, it's about living with it. One nurse, early on, casually let it slip, There's no cure for what you have."
"What if, instead of being diagnosed -- being called mentally ill -- what if I had been able to receive care for its own sake. To be in distress, to ask for care, to receive it. What if there were space in this world for care."
"Oh honey, none of us survive. We are all mortal, and we are all fragile. We are all one moment away from disintegration"
"Only in retrospect might I say I loved it there. I didn't love it. It became familiar. I got used to it. I became dependent upon it. This is not love."
"It is a chemical reaction -- it is magic, I have always thought -- that moment of reception between reader and book. The time must be right. You can't plan it, that vulnerability, that blur between self and text. It is that powerful, it will make and unmake you if you let it."
"All of this thinking about books had made me into a person, an artist. This was real life and I'd worked so long to make it real, more real than any diagnosis had ever been."
"I know that in many cases, for many people, a diagnosis can help locate and treat real experiences of pain, but there are many ways for us to find comfort in the pre-existing condition of being human, which is always inexplicable, on some level. That is why we read books. This is why I needed the stories of these other women."
Memoirs are tough to rate because they're based on a person's personal experiences and life story, and seriously how can one rate that. However, afterMemoirs are tough to rate because they're based on a person's personal experiences and life story, and seriously how can one rate that. However, after finishing this one, I realized it's neither a memoir nor a self-help book.
The writing was simple and approachable. Since this is translated work, I am not going to say anything else about it, as a lot can get lost in translation.
Anyway, this book is more "transcripts with therapist" and less "personal thoughts and experiences" unless you count whatever was said in those therapy sessions. There are some reflections but it's hardly 20 percent of the book.
I was however interested in the therapy bit. The catchy title initially grabbed my attention, and after reading the blurb, I was curious about how depression is perceived in South Korea, and how the therapists there approach the issue. Unfortunately, I was mostly disappointed. I thought the therapist in here was mostly passive, and dare I say, not even much interested in helping out her patient. She prescribed meds(without explaining why she's prescribing what!!), and she never seemed to ask the right questions or even address the issues professionally. Nearly every session felt mundane and one sided. Honestly, I felt bad for the author as a patient!
I would not recommend this book to people looking for self-help because there's no help part in here. Also, it's marketed as a memoir, and say a reader picks it up wanting to read about the author's struggles with depression, they'd still be mostly let down as there's very little information about the author's life.
I am not a huge fan of self help books, but I will read them if they come highly recommended, and Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski was recommended to me by multiple people, so I gave it a go.
Some chapters were excellent, particularly the one on completing the stress cycle, and also those on rest and connection. I learned a bunch of helpful things that were practical and that I believe can be applied in real life. The rest of the book was just okay, and mostly standard feminism and self help talk.
I will however recommend this one if you're looking for something to help you deal with stress and burnout because, like I mentioned, the authors do provide some actionable steps that one can incorporate in real life. Another important point to note is that this book is solely directed towards the female population, although personally the chapters that I found most helpful will work for all genders.
**A free paperback copy was provided by Random House. All opinions are my own**...more
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