Reading Wednesday

[sabotabby]

 Just finished:  From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way by Jesse Thistle. Fun fact! I thought I was over my "overly accurate depictions of drug use are a trigger" thing, but apparently not. Anyway kids. Don't do crack. It turns out okay for him though; he gets married and becomes a prof.

Currently reading: The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy by Cherie Dimaline. I had no idea that this book existed; it's nowhere near as well known as her others. It's about Ruby Bloom, a Métis girl who suffers a series of childhood traumas, including accidentally killing her grandfather when she's seven, and as a result, manifests burning planets—Guilt, Anxiety, Envy—orbiting around her head which no one else (for the most part) can see. 

I am loving this one. Probably among the more accurate depictions of anxiety I've encountered in fiction, written with the same wit and sparkling prose I've come to expect from Dimaline.

Comments

[lapinlunaire]

I desperately, desperately want to read anything by Cherie Dimaline. Everything sounds so great. I love the idea of manifesting emotion planets.

[sabotabby]

I've now read three books by her and I'm convinced you'd love her. If you can't find any of her books I'm tempted to mail you some.

[lapinlunaire]

It's not that I can't find them, just that it'll be a while until I can afford them since they never seem to go on sale. Maybe I'll be able to get them with my birthday money! Fingers crossed because I'm EXCITED

[sabotabby]

Fair! Offer's open if you want presents in the mail.

[mistersmearcase]

I can't decide if reading a very accurate description of anxiety would be affirming or somehow anxious-making. I mean I really like Deborah Eisenberg's story "Days" which is a pretty brutal depiction of depression.

[sabotabby]

I found it affirming. (She also has OCD, which I don't have I don't think, though it's definitely been raised as A Thing at various points in my life.) Mainly I found that someone managed an excellent metaphor for feelings that I have difficulty describing straightforwardly.

[lapinlunaire]

I scrolled down and saw this and yeah, I need to read this. I read a YA book with a character w/ OCD earlier this year and I wish I'd had these books when I was a kid.