Scan barcode
akross's review
3.0
There were moments in Ptacin's memoir that I laughed out loud- her mother's food hoarding is particularly reminiscent of my childhood at my aunt's home. I empathized with her desire to run through pain and grief. I hear her agony echo that of my friends who have suffered miscarriages or gone through abortions. I wanted to burn down Phillips Family Practice right along with her.
Yet even through the revelatory moments, I was distracted by Ptacin's erratic leaps in time, space, and character focus. The narrative felt more like I was sitting down to coffee for a long chat with a friend, rather than reading a carefully edited and structured memoir. That might work for some readers, but didn't vibe well with me.
It was also a minor annoyance when, after a therapist recommends antidepressants for her depression, she tosses aside this recommendation at the urging of a friend and starts "running therapy". This isn't an option for everyone, and just felt a bit dismissive on her part, especially for someone who is clearly in touch with the depth of disconnect and misery that can come from loss.
Yet even through the revelatory moments, I was distracted by Ptacin's erratic leaps in time, space, and character focus. The narrative felt more like I was sitting down to coffee for a long chat with a friend, rather than reading a carefully edited and structured memoir. That might work for some readers, but didn't vibe well with me.
It was also a minor annoyance when, after a therapist recommends antidepressants for her depression, she tosses aside this recommendation at the urging of a friend and starts "running therapy". This isn't an option for everyone, and just felt a bit dismissive on her part, especially for someone who is clearly in touch with the depth of disconnect and misery that can come from loss.
dandaneaureads's review
5.0
This book is a true glimpse of a woman’s heart breaking experience. One in which the author lays everything out on the table, her thoughts, her beliefs, controversial or not, and analyzes them with the reader. The only challenge I had was with her writing style. She will go from one event to the next with no break or transition except a paragraph to denote the change in thoughts. Also, she will begin telling a story as if it’s in the future and then in the next sentence transition it in the present tense. Once I was aware of this I could prepare myself for it and I did not need to reread paragraphs to see what transition I had missed. In the end I ended up enjoying this way of writing. It just took some getting used to.
beatrice_k's review against another edition
4.0
Mira Ptacin is a writer of incredible insight and generosity and the world is made brighter and kinder and better because this book exists. This is not hyperbole, this is the truth. By compassionately, and exquisitely expressing herself and the impossible Story of time, love, loss, and love always and again, as a reader I was left softer and fuller and smarter upon finishing this book. It is gigantic, it is necessary, it is beautiful, it is and does what good writing should do, which is illuminate and reassure the world. I am so thankful it exists, and I’m so excited for you to read it.
liralen's review
3.0
Poor Your Soul is a book about loss—primarily about a pregnancy deemed unviable but also about the loss of Ptacin's brother when they were teenagers. One of the strongest themes I found in the book, though, was guilt: guilt at getting pregnant by accident; guilt at having an easier upbringing than her parents; guilt at being a difficult teenager; guilt at not being home the night her brother died; guilt at initially not wanting to be pregnant; guilt at her pregnancy being unviable; guilt at choosing to terminate the pregnancy rather than wait for a spontaneous (for lack of a better word) miscarriage. Guilt at not being a better daughter and not being a better wife and grieving longer than she thinks she ought. Over and over again we see Ptacin (or, Ptacin-as-narrator) looking for reassurance that it is all right, that it is not her fault: she never missed a pill and was the one percent for whom birth control pills failed; she cannot commit to an abortion until her parents have given it their blessing.
It's a sad book, and a frustrating one. Maybe I didn't connect as well to it as I'd hoped because I had high expectations, or maybe I was just taken aback by the narrative voice in places (what must her MFA experience have been like, for her to assume that if she told the other students at her writing retreat about the pregnancy complications, they would treat the matter coldly and clinically and only through the eyes of writers—not through the eyes of sympathetic human beings?).
There's a happy ending of a sort, though I wonder how far out from the rest of the book the epilogue was written, as it feels nothing like the rest of the book (a standalone essay that was written for another purpose and then incorporated?). Ultimately I think the book was more interesting to me in terms of theme and structure than it was as a whole.
It's a sad book, and a frustrating one. Maybe I didn't connect as well to it as I'd hoped because I had high expectations, or maybe I was just taken aback by the narrative voice in places (what must her MFA experience have been like, for her to assume that if she told the other students at her writing retreat about the pregnancy complications, they would treat the matter coldly and clinically and only through the eyes of writers—not through the eyes of sympathetic human beings?).
There's a happy ending of a sort, though I wonder how far out from the rest of the book the epilogue was written, as it feels nothing like the rest of the book (a standalone essay that was written for another purpose and then incorporated?). Ultimately I think the book was more interesting to me in terms of theme and structure than it was as a whole.
gretasenzig354's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Grief, and Child death
elisecoz's review
5.0
I just finished this and feel like a rubber band ball of emotion. To feel so many things at once is such an odd feeling in itself, but I like it. And that would never have been possible if Mira Ptacin weren't so good at weaving so many narratives together. She has this amazing talent of being able to explain the shades of grey between black and white. No part of life is simple, and you never really know what is going to come next, something that comes through really beautifully here. On a smaller sentence level, this is just a straight up really great piece of writing. I was writing quotations in a separate notebook, and there are so many gorgeous ones. Ptacin has a way of punching you in the gut without ever feeling melodramatic. Yes, there are dramatic moments, but she earns the written tears she sheds. I cried along with her and never felt like she was forcing me to feel something. Finally, I was really impressed with how she wove this together almost as a conversation- there are tangents and she switches narratives and the timeline is definitely not chronological, but it worked. It felt natural, like a friend sat you down with a large pot of tea and shared this incredibly brave and honest story with you, and the entire time you're sipping and just feeling so lucky and honored to hear it.