Terrific memoir of being a survivor and discovering the sometimes-terrible, sometimes-heartening truths about one's self and family. It had such a transportive sense of time and place. The only drawback for me was that the end felt a bit abrupt and disjointed, but it never stopped me loving words she was putting down on the page. Can't wait to read more by Piepzna-Samarasinha. ( )

This books was really incredible--it hurt but there's also so much heart and I literally couldn't put it down. I read it in like two hours in the middle of the night, and couldn't sleep for a little bit afterwards because it had wriggled into my brain and the narration style wouldn't leave me alone. It like. Oozes compassion, which is a bad word to describe it, but that's all that comes to mind. The compassion like seeps out of this book and into your brain and I walked away from it wanting to think more about compassion and justice, about compassion and survival, and about how that survival is made, like its very building blocks. I feel so inadequate writing this review, but it was so good and I just want more people to read it and feel their own versions of what I felt reading it. ( )