Description
A candid, autobiographical scrapbook from a young woman navigating manic depression.A fever dream of darkly personal memories and musings from the shadowy corners of sexual violence and mental illness.
Kirkus Review
As Elissa Washuta makes the transition from college kid to independent adult, she finds herself overwhelmed by the calamities piling up in her brain. When her mood-stabilizing medications arent threatening her life, theyre shoving her from depression to mania and back in the space of an hour. Her crisis of American Indian identity bleeds into other areas of self-doubt; mental illness, sexual trauma, ethnic identity, and independence become intertwined. Sifting through the scraps of her past in seventeen formally inventive chapters, Washuta aligns the strictures of her Catholic school education with Cosmopolitans mandates for womanhood, views memories through the distorting lens of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and contrasts her bipolar highs and lows with those of Britney Spears and Kurt Cobain. Built on the bones of fundamental identity questions as contorted by a distressed brain, My Body Is a Book of Rules pulls no punches in its self-deprecating and ferocious look at human fallibility.
This debut memoir from the independent publisher Red Hen Press isnt for the faint of heart. Washutas honest and lyrical language as well as her subject matter her struggles with bipolar disorder and coping with the effects of rape will gut you, but its the rawness of this work that makes it worth reading. Washutas form, including revised psychiatrists notes, annotated research papers on the use of the term hooking up, summaries of prescription medications, and a profile, is inventive and invites the reader into the authors chaotic brain. The book perfectly articulates the difficulties navigating the path toward adulthood while coping with trauma and mental illness.
Melissa Duclos for Bustle
Featured in Seattle Reading List: https: //
Author: Elissa Washuta
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Published: 08/12/2014
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 9.90h x 6.40w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781597099691
Language: English
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.