Though sometimes retreading ground, you can tell this is written by a poet. A cadence forms in the reiteration and the story itself takes on a kind of shape that, had it been a simple exposition dump like most contemporary memoirs, probably wouldn’t have had the same gravity. The space between, small though the overall book is, is highly effective at the through line. Something many, maybe most, memoirs tend to struggle with. I was surprised at how much love and hope there is for the future, even in the same breath as acknowledging some of the generational pain and harm done, and how it effected her father. Another point that might have been made in much more detail in other styles in the same format.

Had it not had as much retreading for sake of the musicality of some structural choices, I think this might have been a five star read.