Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

I first learned about Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot in February of this year. I'd read great things about Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot in the articles I'd discovered online. So, I decided to buy a hardback copy of it in March. 

Additionally, Sherman Alexie wrote a glowing introduction for Heart Berries: A Memoir. The afterward features Joan Naviyuk Kane interviewing Terese Marie Mailhot about Mailhot's memoir... And both Roxane Gay and Lidia Yuknavitch praised Heart Berries: A Memoir. 

November is Native American Heritage Month here in the USA. With that in mind, I decided it was time to read Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot as the author is Native American and grew up on the Seabird Island First Nation reservation in British Columbia.

I was excited to read Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot. I was expecting great things from this memoir from all the praise I'd read about it. Sadly, reading Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot was a huge disappointment to me. I wanted to love this memoir. Listening to various interviews of the author talking about her memoir, Heart Berries, has me appreciate the message she has to share in her memoir... But Heart Berries: A Memoir in and of itself, simply didn't do it for me.

Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot is written in chapters that read like essays and are epistolary in nature. This memoir also felt very 'stream of consciousness' in nature to me as well.

Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot also felt raw to me. I do like many of the sentences and paragraphs that impart very vivid imagery that does make one pause and give thought to what the author is saying in her memoir. Additionally, I felt like the way in which Heart Berries is written was at times depressing, very depressing. At other times, I felt it was frustrating to read Heart Berries as I felt it was too artistic and took too long for the author to make her thoughts and feelings known... And at other times, I didn't understand what the author was trying to say at all. For example, the last chapter in Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot titled, Better Parts, left me wondering what the author was trying to impart to readers. 

Below is a video of Terese Marie Mailhot speaking about the idea of role models.

When all is said and done, I felt like Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot was simply an okay read. I am giving Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot a rating of 2 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!