This work is a collection of diary entries and photographs taken by the Ukrainian artist, Yegenia Belorusets. Her diary entries detail her perspective from her home in Kyiv from the start of the War in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. She speaks honestly and movingly about how the residents of Kyiv and Ukraine reacted and then adapted to the growth of this war. I believe this is a necessary read if you have been following the war or want to acquaint yourself with it, because this book captures the resilience of the Ukrainian people.
Don't let the title dissuade you with its gloomy nature, because this memoir is actually very lighthearted! The main focus is on the transcripts of Baek Sehee's therapy sessions, followed by her reflections on the topics discussed. I found Baek's voice to be funny, yet honest and the bluntness of her therapist added humor too. I found Baek's anecdotes to be relatable, because she didn't only talk about depression but also how we struggle to find our place in the world as our authentic self.
This is most likely my favorite memoir that I have ever read. In it, Machado tackles the subject of domestic abuse by sharing her own personal experience from a past lesbian relationship. Each chapter Machado uses a different literary form, and alongside her own experiences she weaves in a discussion of how we view abuse and most importantly stereotypes and misconceptions that lead us to miss what is right in front of us. Machado balances these themes to write a memoir that is so much more than a sharing of life.
This is a collection of autobiographical stories written by Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who was imprisonedin a Russian prison after he protested Russia's occupation of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014. Sentsov worked on this collection while imprisoned and was released in 2019, around the same time as its publication. I found Sentsov's to be introspective, sarcastic, and melancholic. They paint a strong image of his life growing up in the USSR and how his life experiences shaped him to be a voice of opposition, and in turn they made me reflect on my own life.
In this memoir Nelson shares the story of her life with her gender-nonconforming partner, Harry Dodge, and their journey together through pregnancy and early parenthood. This memoir is personal but also intellectual, as Nelson forces us to rethink our ideas of love, gender, sexuality, and family. For such a (relatively) short book, by the end I felt like a different person because how much I re-evaluated my own thoughts.