Emilie Pine

I was recommended this book by my manager when it came out & I have to say it is not an easy read but it is extraordinary!

In a series of essays Pine is honest and brutal in equal measures. She reaches deep inside herself and pulls out all the ugly, and heart-breaking parts of being a woman in today's society and lays it bare for us all to see, and no doubt for some - to judge.

She talks about events that we do not openly discuss. About being the child of an addict, about the minutiae of fertility and the loss surrounding it, the grief of stillbirth. She talks about sexual violence - and the forms we don't recognise when they happens. She talks about periods and blood, about women's place and value in society, about the pressure of academic life and dealing with depression.

But what is most startling about this book is even during the most brutal events there is a sense of hope... a sense of survival. I am reminded of a line that stood out to me... "writing is a way of making sense of the world, a way of processing – of possessing – thought and emotion, a way of making something worthwhile out of pain."

In all this Pine takes the pain of her life – of all our lives – and makes it worthwhile.… (more)