February 22, 2012

I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl by Kelle Groom

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Tori Grant-Welhouse reviews Kelle Groom’s memoir, “I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl”: “Her life, as she tells it, is defined by the birth of her son Tommy and his double loss. As a young, unmarried woman, she gives him away for adoption only to learn soon after that he dies from leukemia at the heart-breaking age of two. The memoir submerges us in Groom’s search for Tommy, and through Tommy, herself. Each short chapter acts as a small eddy as she tries to make sense of the course of her life.”

Posted Under: Non-fiction Reviews

Writing the Revolution by Michele Landsberg

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By the 1970s, the second wave feminist movement was well underway. Yet many Canadian newsrooms remained boys clubs, with stories documenting the changing landscape of women’s social and political lives all but ignored by mainstream media. Women writing about women’s interests during this time did so mainly through women’s publications, slipping pointed opinion pieces in [...]

Posted Under: Non-fiction Reviews

Who Is Ana Mendieta? by Christine Redfern & Caro Caron

Who Is Ana Mendieta? by Christine Redfern & Caro Caron (Feminist Press, 2011)

Shana Thornton reviews Who Is Ana Mendieta? (Feminist Press, 2011) by Christine Redfern and Caro Caron: “We see the oppression and exclusion that motivated her, the violence against women that provoked her, her vulnerable passion for the earth and nature that healed her, and her own insecurities that propelled unhealthy cycles within her life. But not only do we see the strengths and weaknesses of Ana in the graphic comic, we also see the vulnerabilities and momentum of the women’s movement in the arts at the time.”

Posted Under: Non-fiction Reviews

The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin

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Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo reviews Margot Mifflin’s book, “The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman.” In the review, Corliss DeLorenzo writes: “Margot Mifflin sketches out a life in fine detail in her book ‘The Blue Tattoo’. Although an historical account, it rouses strong metaphors with timeless applications: the idea of what marks us, that which comprises our stories and how they are interpreted, appropriated or manipulated.”

Posted Under: Non-fiction Reviews

Fatima Bhutto’s Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter’s Memoir

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Kylie Grant reviews Fatima Bhutto’s Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter’s Memoir (Nation Books, 2010). Grant gives a balanced review of the strengths in Bhutto’s memoir, as well as how she falls short of giving the reader a true exploration into both politics and family.

Posted Under: Non-fiction Reviews

and then there were three… by Supriya Bhatnagar

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Review by Carol Smallwood Serving House Books, 2010 The memoir, and then there were three…, is a slim book and a breathtaking look at a childhood in a diverse, changing India by Supriya Bhatnagar. The three refers to the family loss of her beloved father when Supriya was nine, and her mother moves the two [...]

Posted Under: Non-fiction Reviews

After the Falls: Coming of Age in the Sixties by Catherine Gildiner

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Viking Adult, 2010 Review by Rhianon Huot After the Falls: Coming of Age in the Sixties is Catherine Gildiner’s follow up to the New York Times bestselling memoir, Too Close to the Falls, which tackled her childhood years. Now twelve and on the cusp of becoming a teenager, Gildiner’s life changes dramatically. Her family loses [...]

Posted Under: Non-fiction Reviews

auf Wiedersehen by Christa Holder Ocker

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Plain View Press, 2009 Review by Hannah Eason The ravages of World War II in contemporary art is not new. Many memoirs and documentaries have taken as their subject the deleterious effects of the war on families, particularly those within the Jewish community. auf Wiedersehen is the true account of the war as told by [...]

Posted Under: Non-fiction Reviews

Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka by Adele Barker

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Beacon Press, January 2010 Review by Suzanne Kamata It takes a certain kind of woman to up and move from Arizona to a war-torn, wet country on the other side of the world. Such a woman is Adele Barker, who, in 2001, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, brings – drags? [...]

Posted Under: Non-fiction Reviews

The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2008 edited by Lucy McCauley

Travelers’ Tales, 2008 Review by Suzanne Kamata The traveler’s tale my husband and I tell most often is about the time an arsonist set fire to our Vancouver hotel and I was rescued by hook and ladder. It was a small fire, no one was injured, and we got a story out of it that [...]

Posted Under: Non-fiction Reviews
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