Heart Berries: A Memoir

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.

Apparently Mailhot started parts of this as fiction, and then later turned it into a memoir. Which could be intriguing, but for me just read as an overly-poetic sometimes-incoherent stream of consciousness. She deals with important heavy subjects, so I feel bad for not liking the style more.

2.5

I usually love this kind of disjointed prose memoir, but it didn't quite land for me here. I'm not totally sure why. But I liked it! I just am not sure I'd read it again.