A review by pr_aniya
Places I've Taken My Body: Essays by Molly McCully Brown

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

 One of my reading intentions for 2024 is read more widely. I found this book on Libby last year and decided it would be a good time to now. I am so happy I stubbled across this book because I devoured it and it slightly broken me in ways a good book does. Molly is raw and open when she writes about her experience of being physical disable with cerebral palsy and how it effects her relationships with parents, lovers, travel, grief and her body. Her writing is so good and she describes a specific perspective but the emotional heartbeat transcends to feelings that left me needing a crying break between essays.

It is clear that the essays are a collection from other publications as there is repeated themes and topics, but she explored so many ideas each time.

I blame [my body] for making me feel selfish all the time, because my attention is turned so thoroughly inward, attending to its needs. I blame it for my fear that my writing will always be narrow, hemmed in by its hurt and relentlessness. I blame it for screwing with my plans, for always demanding revision to fit its stringent reality. I blame it for the fact that I'm alone here, though I chose it... Above all, though, I blame my body for the fact that, after all these years, I'm still grieving a plain stupid grief that I can't hide. I blame it for being itself, for existing to be ruined and repaired.