TOP TEN TUESDAY | GENRE FREEBIE – BEST MEMOIRS I READ IN THE LAST TWO YEARS

 

This week’s prompt is a genre freebie, so I’ve decided to focus on memoirs. Partly because there are lots of good ones, partly because I’ve read so many good ones in the past couple of years, and partly because there’s so much variability in formats, themes and styles within that genre. Here are my favourite memoirs read recently:

 

Mental Health and Medical Experiences

               

I loved It’s All Absolutely Fine, because it’s simple, easy to read, but also deeply explores depression and anxiety in a realistic way. It’s great if you also suffer from similar mental health issues, but also if you don’t but loves someone who does and you’re trying to understand their experiences, or if you just like to learn about other people’s perspectives. Broken is another book that has largely to do with mental health, but also physical health, life in general and lots and lots of humour, often about dead animals. It’s Jenny Lawson. Do I even really need to sell this one? Lukach’s memoir is about his wife’s struggles with her mental health, and it’s evocative and beautifully written, but also a unique perspective as being told by the loved one of someone with mental health issues. This Is Going to Hurt is a British doctor’s memoir of his time as a training doctor, and it shines a light on the shortfalls of the NHS system before Covid-19. It’s funny but also pretty dark and upsetting in places. Worth a read if you want to understand what it’s like to work in a medical profession.

 

Death and Grief

     

Crying in H Mart is one woman’s memoir of her mother’s death from cancer, but also spans back through her memories of their lives together, the struggles they had to connect, her desire to claim her Korean heritage, and her realization of her mother’s love as she grieved losing her. Sad. Lots of food. Tons of hype, and earns it. When Breath Becomes Air is a memoir written by a doctor who is diagnosed with cancer, and his journey through treatment and eventually, death. It’s so beautifully written, has an immense emotional impact, and is an interesting perspective as it’s written by a doctor and patient. Left me with an odd feeling of hope, which was not at all what I expected.

 

Race, Place and Belonging

          

Son of Elsewhere was my first book of 2023, and a great way to start off the year. It’s the memoir of a Sudanese man who moved to Canada as a teenager. He shares his struggles to fit in and learn a new language and culture, the divide between his parent’s culture and the culture of his new home, as well as his struggle to find his own place between the two. It captures so many things I either experienced as a first generation Canadian, and things I was told or observed in other immigrant kids I grew up around. It’s brilliant. The Window Seat is a really interesting collection of writings about Aminatta Forna’s life – she has had a really fascinating one, and shares her experiences in various countries and cultures, as well as musing on travel itself. Born a Crime was a brilliant account of what it was like growing up as a mixed-race boy/man in South Africa before and after Apartheid ended. He’s hilarious, but also tough, insightful and reflective.

 

         

The Fire Next Time is a letter Baldwin wrote to his nephew about what it means to be Black in America, and in the world. The unique struggles he has faced and his advice on how to navigate the complexities and dangers. It’s beautiful and anger provoking, even more so because it is every bit as relevant now as when it was first written in the 1960s. We have not come as far as we like to think. Which is evidenced in Between the World and Me, which is a reference to Baldwin’s book and follows a similar format as a letter Coates is writing to his son. He also explores race and racism in the US, the challenges his son will face and the generational trauma he will inherit. But he also talks about the rich cultural history and inside connection he shares with other Black Americans, and the strength and survival instinct that has also been passed down. It is powerful and intense, definitely one of my top recommendations. This Bright Future is written by Bobby Hall, aka Logic, a hip hop artist. In this book he shares his life story – from his childhood with a mentally ill mother who neglected him and abused him, the poverty they lived in, the experiences he had trying to find his place in the world, and the incredibly strong inner compass that guided him towards a different kind of future and away from the addiction and violence he so easily could have become part of. It’s surprisingly well written, it’s brutally honest, but also has a rare insight into his mother’s illness, his own problems, and what he has learned from all of it.

 

LGBTQ+ Lives

     

I am a huge fan of Ivan E. Coyote’s. Their writing is engaging, some times confronting, often funny and always purely honest. It’s an excellent one to read if you’re looking to understand more about what it means to be Trans and the unique challenges Trans people face as they move through a world that was not designed for them. Fun Home is an odd one. It does have to do with LGBTQ+ experiences, but it’s more to do with family and dysfunction and identity. It’s a graphic novel, so not a long read, but definitely requires some emotional energy to get through!

So those are the books in loose categories. I also re-read Helene Hanff’s memoir about her reading life, Q’s Legacy, which is one of my favourite books of all time (memoir or otherwise), but it doesn’t really fit into any of the categories and I couldn’t be bothered trying to create a new one for it, so I’m just mentioning it here.

What about you guys? Have you read any of these? If so, what did you think? If you read memoirs, which are your favourites (in these categories or out of them – whatever you love!)?

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.