An unflinching, searingly honest collection of essays on alcoholism, infertility and sexual violence. I was moved to tears on several occasions and the prose will stay with me for a long time.

Frank and heartfelt personal essays dealing with some difficult subjects. The writing was engaging and thought-provoking and although this wasn't the sort of book I'd usually read I'm very glad I did.

Raw, honest and so insightful. She writes from such a vulnerable place and is not afraid to open herself up in order for us readers to understand the human predicament better. Thank you
"I am afraid. But I am doing it anyway"

Engaging, frank and honest. A highly acclaimed book-well-written and thought-absorbing. A reflective intriguing read. Recommended.

This is a thought provoking book which is so honest and almost unbearably identifiable that I squirmed in places. Emilie Pine leaves nothing out and I admire her guts. A well written and well deserved five star read.

More like several mini books in one sitting!!..
Ideal if you want to jump in and out of your reading sessions.
I particularly liked the first part about treatment in a foreign hospital as it brings home the truth about lack of funding and how families are used in nursing.
Quite an entertaining read

Pine's essays evoke a whole range of emotions through her beautifully constructed tales of human experience. I found each piece relatable in some way, and was moved to tears by some. I don't think it's possible to overstate the importance of sharing such stories. It takes great bravery (and humility) to reveal all the parts of yourself and I applaud Emilie for doing so. “Notes To Self” is a shining example of contemporary non-fiction at its finest.

Originally released by Ireland’s Tramp Press in 2018, this was named the An Post Irish Book of the Year 2018 and has now been re-released by mainstream publishers. You expect the average collection to contain maybe 10 or 12 essays, so the fact that there are only six here accounts for why they all tend to drag at a certain point. While I think most of them could be made snappier, they remain bold, accessible feminist takes on the body and expectations for women’s lives. I especially liked “Notes on Intemperance,” the first essay, about her alcoholic father’s health crisis and the vanishingly small chance of him getting adequate treatment on Corfu, where he lived. She had to beg his nurses to wear gloves. When she learned that staff had to buy such disposables out of their own small salaries, she understood – but was still appalled. Just being there was a miracle given that there was no love lost between father and daughter. “It is hard to love an addict,” she writes. “Not only practically difficult, in the picking up after them and the handling of those aspects of life they’re not able [to] for themselves, but metaphysically hard. It feels like bashing yourself against a wall, not just your head, but your whole self. It makes your heart hard. … It took years of refusing him empathy before I realised that the only person I was hurting was myself.”

Other essays are on infertility and her sister’s loss of an infant, the early breakdown of their parents’ marriage (they never divorced, though: divorce was illegal in Ireland until 1997; after that they just didn’t bother), menstruation and body hair, her wild teen years and being raped, and the constant struggle as a working woman to be ambitious yet vulnerable without coming across as bitchy or oversensitive. The writing style is not flashy, but it doesn’t need to be. This is relatable straight talk, like you might get if you were to sit down with your girlfriends of various backgrounds and experiences and actually discuss things that matter.

This book is a collection of personal essays focusing on a number of taboo subjects – the alcohol addiction of Emilie Pine’s father, her own problems with fertility, the loss of children, of miscarriage, of regret and death and guilt. Whilst the book is brutally honest, it’s just… a lot. That doesn’t make it bad exactly but it does make it a difficult read. Everything is laid bare in quite a matter-of-fact way and whilst I was glad that Pine never wallowed in self-pity it was the lack of personal reflection that left me feeling a little cold. I struggled to get a handle on who she was and her lack of empathy for others or consideration of the wider issues that impacted upon her life meant that in turn I struggled to empathise with her.

Whilst I wouldn’t say that this book was enjoyable, it was a powerful read containing beautifully written prose. I appreciated the honesty of the author in tackling such difficult subjects but I struggled to connect emotionally.

Adored this collection - what a talent Emilie Pine is. Feels like a collection that you hold on to and will relate to different aspects at different points of your life. Can't wait to see what she writes next.

Little snapshots of people's lives, through pain and joy. Each chapter being unique and poignant. Realistic. Gritty. Enthralling.

“By the time we find him, he has been lying in a small pool of his own shit for several hours.”

So begins this collection of exceptionally frank personal essays by Emilie Pine. It’s as if somebody had been asked to mentally list the ten or so memories that they would be most embarrassed to reveal, even to their closest friends/ lovers and had then gone into fine detail on each and published the result. It is a very brave book, given that Ms Pine has a public profile as an academic in Ireland and it was initially published in Ireland, where everybody knows everybody pretty much, at least indirectly.

The good news regarding the father is that he survived. The grim tale is told of navigating the Greek health system, even down to having to buy disposable gloves for the nurses, and then getting him to Ireland for medical treatment, with all the battles with the system, and watching him address his alcoholism.

“Like all children of heavy drinkers, we developed a particular kind of watchfulness,” she writes and this watchfulness is applied to all her topics, which include infertility. (and,again, the issue of health service and private insurance); the break-up of her parents’ marriage; periods, body image and self-esteem; her eating disorders; her time, beginning as a 14 year old, as a wild child in London after what seems a fairly friendless and troubled childhood in Ireland; her sexual experiences in that time, including, she now realises, two rapes; her realization that her life has a great deal that is positive, including a very successful career as an academic. But her final essay sets out the high price of attempting to balance life and career, especially for women.

As a child, Ms Pine promised the journalist father that she would not become a writer but knew it was a false promise as, “writing is a way of making sense of the world...a way of making something worthwhile out of pain.” Notes to Self is utterly convincing proof of that assertion and is one of the most memorable books I’ve read.

Notes to Self is a collection of chapters written by Emilie Pine covering key moments from her life. These aren’t cheerful memories from a happy childhood, but important recollections of life changing periods with social commentary.

The reader learns of an alcoholic father, a troubled teenager, trying for a baby, births, deaths and some outright scary situations in between. These stories have so much more depth than an autobiographical recollection.

I am not here.

The themes explored in these chapters may be seen as social taboos. Everything I did identify with was something I felt I had experienced alone, or struggled to express my feelings properly afterwards. Reading similar experiences gives comfort; that others have been through this too; that they understand. It also bring sorrow; that others have been through this too; that they also couldn’t talk about their experiences openly.

Not all of us made it.

Some parts made me cry, a lot! Utterly heartbreaking moments do not make for easy reading, but I couldn’t stop reading. I devoured the book. These are things that need to be discussed, but it doesn’t feel a burden. I felt emotionally exhausted but also empowered after finishing. I will be dwelling on these stories, I will not forget them.

...I am doing it anyway.

An honest, heartbreaking, but powerful exploration of the experiences that shape many of us.

First published by Tramp Press in Ireland, ‘Notes to Self’ is a collection of deeply personal essays by Irish academic Emilie Pine addressing her experiences of fertility treatment, miscarriage, sexual assault and her childhood growing up with separated later divorced parents in Ireland. The first essay which explores her father’s alcoholism and her struggle to find care for him on the Greek island of Corfu is particularly powerful and in my view is the strongest in this collection. Many other reviewers have described Pine’s essays as “raw” and “unflinching” - the subject matters are certainly hard hitting although I occasionally felt some of the nuance was lost underneath this, Nevertheless, I would recommend ‘Notes to Self’ to fans of Rebecca Solnit and other feminist writers.

Raw, real, honest and beautiful. Everyone should read this absolutely stunning collection of essays- I will be buying for lots of family and friends. So relatable.

`The person who loves the addict exhausts and renews their love on a daily basis' 

Within this short collection, Emilie bares her soul. Sharing with us, some of her most personal stories from growing up with an alcoholic parent to her miscarriage and more. That said, this isn't a pity party, instead it radiates strength. While I had never heard of Emile before this, I felt like she was someone I could know.

One of the things I enjoyed the most while reading this is seeing Emilie grow up from a little girl who didn't understand her parent's separation, a wild teenager to an intelligent woman. It seems that there is nothing that Pine tries to hide from us, and that takes guts. We all change so much from being a child to a fully-grown adult and this collection definitely shares warts and all.

This is a collection that will make you think about your own life, the choices you have made and the reactions you have had. There is an unflinching honesty within Pine’s essays that isn’t seen often. In particular, when speaking about being unable to conceive, I was in awe of the way in which she shared her feelings. Infertility, miscarriage and stillbirth are all covered within these pages and these are the conversations that we often shy away from in society. The fact that Pine speaks about her experiences in such an honest way will no doubt make people feel less alone when they read this.

I gave this collection 5 stars. It only took a day for me to read through this and while there were times that I was on the verge of tears, it’s something that I feel needs to be read. This is definitely just the start of some wonderful work that we’ve going to see from Emilie Pine, and I for one can’t wait.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for giving me a copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Joyful and mesmerising and heartbreaking. I was so engaged in Emilie's writings about her experiences. I will look out for this and more by her in the future.

A collection of personal essays exploring themes of motherhood, womanhood and adulthood. The book begins with a mediation on familial addiction and its effects on family dynamics following her father's health crisis in Greece, Emilie Pine thereafter writes movingly about fertility, femininity, bereavement, divorce and teenage rebellion and exploitation.

Notes to Self is one of my favourite books of the year so far, an accolodate I can quite confidently stay will still remain true by the year's end. Each essay is so beautifully written, utterly enthralling and unflinchingly honest. Unlike most other essay collections that I have read before, there are no filler or mediocre essays; each one is exceptionally and painstakingly crafted and compliments the others in the collection. Her insightful and incredibly intimate commentary on such personal topics really impressed me. I feel like I have taken a lot from this book, particularly in regards to her essays on fertility struggles and her thoughts on femininity and womanhood.

She speaks often about what it is to be a woman in the domestic, social and professional worlds. One point that particularly struck me was her essay on her career and what it is to be a feminist as a lauded academic and teacher. Living in the professional world as a woman is fraught with mine-fields, but Pine very much rejects the overt and non-direct discrimination she has faced as a professional woman. She discusses how women are often forced into the position of side-stepping sexism in a sort of picking your battles sense and letting things go as a result. However, memorably, Pine hits back at this sort of culture we have allowed to prosper as utterly objectionable as a silencing tactic against women - "In side-stepping, in not calling out the sexist remarks, I act as if they are in the right, I act as if women should not have voices, and I act as if I am not a feminist, and the truth is, I am tired of being a feminist. I am tired of it being women's responsibility to identify and tackle and fix sexism." It was an incredible feeling to see this written in black and white and so concisely and coherently, and really related to my experiences as a young female graduate, trying to find a place for me in the corporate world.

What I found most enthralling was how each essay was so steeped in her national identity and geographical context. The author is Irish (as am I) and the whole collection felt very Irish. A lot of the topics she tackled often traced back to Irish law and regulation, most overtly, of course, with abortion and women's rights but also with speaking on her upbringing and relating this to nuclear family structures and Irish culture. It really put into perspective how where you live really does have a heavy impact on who you are as a person and on your life experiences. As a Northern Irish young woman, this book really spoke to me.

Notes to Self is a revelation and I want to buy it for every woman in my life.

Brave, honest, raw and unflinching, Emelie Pine perfectly portrays what it’s like to be a woman today. So much of this resonated with my own experiences or this of close friends - everyone needs to read this.

I feel that as a male I am not the best person to review this book . I feel that it did the writer more good in a cathartic way than it would help the reader. Some moments rang true from various chapters , the alcohol abuse , miscarriage , rumours and myths of sex as a teenager . It also showed how backward the Irish Government were , due to religious pressures and fears , bringing misery to many people of all generations .