i'll admit, this almost became a DNF for me based off of the first 14%, and i think that's a shame, because mccandless makes a lot of innovative and frankly groundbreaking formatting and writing decisions throughout, but beginning the book with an alphabetical list of key words that will be used throughout the book, when the reader hasn't been introduced to the narrator just yet, made it very difficult to get through. when i finished the book, i thought very distinctly that the first and last sections of the book should be swapped - it makes far more sense for the 'needs/wants' section to begin the book and the alphabetical glossary to conclude it. as i finish it, i think that the digital formatting of the book is probably to its own detriment, and that anyone that's interested in reading it would enjoy a physical copy more. the digital formatting made it difficult to scroll back and forth to gain context, to 'flip' through the pages to connect a lot of the larger sections of the book, and overall made what i know to be a cohesive novel disjointed.

Persephone’s Children floored me. It is so unique yet stunningly written and really gives a different perspective into how a brain processes trauma. How our minds jump to different memories via connections, how different experiences trigger us.

I also appreciated the history sprinkled throughout the book, and Grandma Daisy’s story made me ache as an Atlantic Canadian. I was so ignorant of the history of the KKK throughout Canada, and the Maritimes and I cannot imagine the trauma.

The book explores domestic abuse and generational trauma very well and I felt privileged to have read this book.

Rowan McCandless uses a lovely, unique manner to create her memoir; she uses scaffolding of various types, including the alphabet that begins the book (A is for…), followed by a screenplay, poems, and crossword puzzles, along with essays. In this creative yet unorthodox manner, Ms. McCandless lays out all the hardships she endures in her lifetime, ranging from poverty, childhood and domestic abuse, an eating disorder, depression, anxiety, and institutional racism.

After eating three pomegranate seeds in the Underworld, Persephone must spend part of her year there and part on the surface of the earth, thus effectively straddling two worlds. Ms. McCandless, a biracial woman, must do the same, existing between her white and her black families. The alphabet that begins this work gives a baseline from which she and her readers explore her life. Though the timeframe isn’t chronological, the bouncing around gives some sense of how memories are explored and reframed over time. Overall, this was a powerful, moving book.

Probably the most fascinating memoir I've read. I admire the author for taking a chance on employing so many different structures to tell her story. All the fragments give you an inisght into how the brain works to cope with different traumatic events, reimagining and restructuring and viewing memories through different lenses in order to make sense of them. I'll definitely be thinking about this book for a long time.

Persephone’s Children by Rowan McCandless

328 Pages
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Release Date: November 9, 2021

Nonfiction, Biographies, Memoirs, Domestic Violence, Counseling

Rowan McCandless is a biracial woman living in Canada. She writes about her abusive relationships and her final escape. She shows how much it took to finally have the courage to leave.

These are the names of the chapters.

Blood Tithes: A Primer
Binding Resolutions
Articulations of Loss
Trialogue: A Play on Words
Today
Thoughts on Keeping a Notebook
Map of the World
Forest, Tree, Branch, Root
Therapist
Revolving Doors
Found Objects
Orange
Hunger Games: A Quiz
Bait and Switch
Practical Magick: A Beginner’s Grimoire
Vocal Lessons: A Diagnostic Report
An Inventory of Wants and Needs


The book is written in a unique format. Some of it is written as a dictionary of terms with definitions. There are questions and quizzes with multiple choice answers. Each chapter discusses a specific times or events in the author’s life. Dealing with domestic violence is hard and the author shows her bravery in her worlds. She also talks about how words can hurt a woman, especially a woman with an eating disorder and a woman of color.

When I started the book, I was confused with the first chapter but soon realized how the author was laying out the story. There are sayings in the book that will stay with me long after I finish the book. I enjoyed reading about Rowan and her courage to leave a violent situation. I recommend this book to see how hard it is to live with domestic violence and make the decision to leave.

Rowan McCandless writes about being in an abusive relationship and the damage and trauma this has caused, even long after she has decided to leave. The structure of this memoir is so interesting and unlike anything I'd read before: each chapter is written in a different format. One chapter takes the form of a contract; one is a crossword puzzle; one details a diagnosis of her vocal chords and the damage the relationship caused to her voice. My favourite (though this sounds strange to say about a book that deals with such difficult topics) was the chapter that took the form of a screenplay: she and her then-husband played fictionalised versions of themselves, and the director and writer kept trying to fit their story into different genres. The way McCandless writes about her experiences is so vulnerable and sincere. She talks about growing up in a mixed-race household and the complexities this brings; she discusses being sexually assaulted as a teenager and how the shame and guilt she felt influenced other events later in her life. She writes about writing and how this played a big part in her recovery after leaving her abusive husband. Though I don't think the format of the memoir always worked perfectly, I really loved the parts where it did and really admire McCandless for trying something so different. I enjoyed her writing and look forward to seeing what she writes next.

A very interesting memoir. Though I did not find it as engaging as one written like a story, full marks for ingenuity.

Very interesting; I especially enjoyed how it was read with an alphabetic story line. The pictures brought it closer to real life to see. Thank you for the read.

This was a clever, unique and quite beautiful way for the author to have written her memoir, of escaping and healing from domestic abuse, child abuse, institutional racism and an eating disorder.

The book was written in essay form, essays that included being written as a script, an acrostic poem, and my favorite (as an SLP) an SLP report to show how she, the author, lost and reclaimed her voice.

This book was very creative in it's form, I didn't necessarily feel as if I got to know the author and her family very well which is what I enjoy about memoir, but I guess that wasn't really the point of this book.

I would give a 5 for brilliance and how cleverly the book was written, but a 3 for my engagement, which averages out to a 4!

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Really interesting read from the start. A lot of personal information and historical information that made me look a few things up to expand my knowledge more. There's a lot of family and societal issues brought up throughout that really make the reader think and feel for the author and their family.

This was a really interesting take on writing a memoir. Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

It’s an account of McCandless’ journey to recovery after a lifetime of abuse. From a toxic home environment, she is catapulted into toxic relationships and marriages which ended up equally abusive.

I enjoyed the explorative nature of this. McCandless recounts her experiences of abuse and recovery not in the conventional memoir way, but instead through different collections of writing. This includes an A-Z of word association, memories from different addresses, memories associated with different trees, research data, psychiatrist reports, and word searches. This almost stream-of-consciousness style was really illuminating; I get the feeling that these sections were written as essays to help her come to terms with her experiences, and that these essays were then compiled into a book. Personally I quite enjoyed this approach - but it may not be to everyone’s tastes, and I did grow a bit tired of it towards the end as it felt like a repetition of the same points in different ways.

It does, at points, make for really tough and heartbreaking reading. However, it is some of the most breathtakingly beautiful, raw and perceptive writing I’ve come across in a while. As well as a personal testimony, it does also include some interesting social commentary; there were many elements of this that I found myself nodding in agreement with. Her perspective on life as a female of mixed heritage (and therefore highly vulnerable in an environment rife with racism and objectification) were enlightening.

Persephone's Children is a memoir about a woman's experience escaping an abusive relationship that eroded her livelihood for a long period of time. I enjoyed the format of the story, as it was split up into fragmented essays. The author experiments with layout and unconventional modes of self-expression. As a result, the end result is incredibly unique. McCandless's writing is candid and honest, and her perspectives on race, intergenerational trauma, motherhood, and womanhood are very insightful.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

Persephone's Children was provided for free by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I read this on my kindle. 5/5 ⭐

The goddess Persephone has to straddle two worlds. As a mixed race woman, Rowan McCandless relates. In a collection of essays, Rowan shares with us her life. She shares her trauma, her recovery, and her resilience.

This book was powerful. Rowan was sexually assaulted at a young age, belittled and abused by her parents, abused by several husband's, and struggled with mental health issues like depression, anxiety and a restrictive eating disorder, all while facing the challenge of racism.

The essays in this book are brilliantly written. Some examples are; Rowan writes out the alphabet, introducing us to her complex family and giving a baseline of her life experiences. She writes a play, to showcase how difficult it was to work with her abusive husband, M. Rowan writes a full psychological evaluation, detailing how and why her voice isn't always around. Rowan detailed her stays in a crisis stabilization unit by identifying writing prompts.

The content of the essays isn't always in a linear time scale, focusing on several different time periods of Rowan's life simultaneously. I found it was appropriate because when recalling trauma, memories ann't stirred up in a linear fashion.

Overall, This essay collection was powerful, captivating, and moving.

I highly recommend!

A note: I had difficulty with the formatting of this book. Often pictures would appear halfway through sentences, and new essays would start on the same page as old ones. Pictures wouldn't load on many pages either. Sometimes new paragraphs would start within the previous paragraph. I'm not sure if this is intentional, or if when the PDF was loaded onto my Kindle it formatted weird.

Rowan McCandless created a unique memoir by a series of inventive essays, some of those resembling dictionary or encyclopedia entries, others looking like crosswords and puzzles, while another looked like daily journal entries with prompts and one was written like a play. In this unorthodox but creative way, McCandless discusses all the hardships that she went through in her life including abuse, trauma, and loss.

Persephone's Children is the proof that there is no limit in the ways we can tell our stories and through skillful techniques more and more groundbreaking stories come to light every day.

An interesting book about a woman’s journey. I enjoyed it. It was something new to me and I learned more about someone who I might not have met otherwise.

I was so excited to read this novel as soon as I heard about it from a friend who also had the amazing opportunity to read an ARC of it and, my god, I was not disappointed. It is such a beautifully, and uniquely told memoir that encapsulates a story which I imagine is one that is not easy to tell. The author uses so many different techniques and tools to perfectly highlight the experience’s they went through, and while this is not an easy read by any means, it really tells the story in such a beautiful way. Equally, the way in which the book creatively strays from the normal linear narrative path really helps to pull together the novel in its incandescent entirety.

Honestly one of my favourite reads of the year so far!

A life in Fragments really describes this book very well.

I found it to be a bit confusing, jumping from one thing to another (though always with a running theme) but it make perfect sense in all with the title.

I was provided with an advanced copy from the publisher via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I’m throwing a guess now, but I think this is a book you’ll want as a physical copy, as an e-book formatting might not be the best to enjoy the different format as best as you can.

The author uses different kind of tools for storytelling that brings a different perspective to highlight her history of abuse.

I am not Canadian, but having lived in Canada for a few years, it was enlightening to read about the experience of a biracial black Canadian woman and how difficult it was.

If you enjoy linear, « classic », storytelling, this book might not be for you. However, if you like trying new things, and are ready for a non-fiction book that changes a bit from the chronological format, give this one a try.

This story and cover art drew me right in!

Thank you Net Galley for the advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review!

Persephone's Children is a non-fiction book about a black woman who left a long-term abusive relationship. It's written through a number of essays in different formats. The book has 328 pages and it's written by Rowan McCandless.

To be honest, this book took me quite a while to read. I thought it was very interesting, but also I couldn't really focus for a long time on it. My mothertongue isn't English, and I thought the language was sometimes quite hard to understand for me. It's also a very heavy topic, which makes it difficult to read. I deffinitely would not recommend this to someone who is currently in an abusive relationship, has been in an abusive relationship or is currently leaving an abusive relationship. The book can be very triggering if you've been through something similar.

Personally, even though I found it quite hard to read and it took me quite a while, I'm glad I read it. It gave me more insight in how it is to be a black woman in this world and abusive relationships. I would very much recommend it if it won't trigger you.

I read this book on NetGalley. NetGalley is a website where you can read books before te release date for free. The only thing they ask in return is an honest review about the book. I think this is a great website if you like to read.

Persephone's Children by Rowan McCandless will be released on October 12th 2021.

Persephone's Children is an incredibly unique memoir told in a multitude of styles, all representing different aspects and moments in Rowan McCandless's life. Over the course of the memoir you discover not only McCandless's story, but also elements of your own story throughout the connection with another.

I really enjoyed this novel. I've never read a memoir as uniquely told as this one (a crossword chapter, anyone?) and every moment throughout it I found myself leaning closer and closer, eager to see the growth and change and strength that comes through so many moments of difficulty and strife. This memoir really honors McCandless's story, and I found myself completely drawn into figuring out how she had the strength to accomplish all of the things she did. None of this could have been easy to write, let alone live through, and I want to thank McCandless for feeling open enough to share her story with the world.

Thank you Dundurn Press and NetGalley for the eARC!