Brutalities was a really interesting read; I liked reading about all the different jobs the protagonist had throughout her life. I also thought the pregnancy during the pandemic was very interesting.

〝we fit easily because he was a solid object and i was water and there was nothing i could not shave myself around〞

★★★★.5

quarantined in a southwestern desert city in the midst of her high-risk pregnancy, steines felt her life narrow around her growing body, compelling her to reckon with the violence entangled in its history. she was a professional dominatrix in new york city, a homestead farmer in a brutal relationship, a welder on a high-rise building crew, and a mixed martial arts enthusiast; each of her many lives brought a new vantage point from which to see how power and masculinity coalesce―and how her body paid the price. with unflinching candor, steines searches for the roots of her erstwhile attraction to pain while charting the complicated triumph of tenderness and care.

I'm very easy to please when it comes to memoirs, especially when it's an audiobook narrated by the author but this was objectively amazing. I don't think you can really criticize a memoir. being able to write down and publish the hardest times of your life for the whole world to see is one of the bravest things you can do. because of this, going into a memoir, all I'm really looking for is to hear someone's story, be intrigued by it and maybe learn something or get inspired. reading this; all my hopes and expectations were exceeded with miles to spare.

firstly, it was really interesting hear about someone else's experience during the pandemic, especially with her being pregnant. during and right after the pandemic I think a lot of us, me included, didn't have the brain capacity to really think about anyone else's experience because we were focusing on surviving our own and when we had some time left over after that; we wanted to escape. now however, when everything's mostly back to normal, I'm interested in hearing different perspectives and others experiences and I found this to be a really interesting account especially surrounding the uncertainty and fear knowing you need medical attention in the near future and infection already being a concern before the pandemic came into play. since I worked in healthcare during the pandemic it was interesting to see our experiences centering the same building but still being completely different.

secondly, it was just truly inspiring to get a first hand account of a "normal" woman's personal growth. from finding herself in and through many vastly different careers, to exploring many ways of aesthetic expression, to learning to listen to and appreciate her body and the kind of love she wants and gives evolving right belong-side her the whole time. she evolves and grows in so many different aspects of life that anyone can pick this book up and find they're not alone in what they're going through. I'm not saying that her story is generic because it's anything but, I'm saying it's expansive. this contains so many lessons and I think it's truly beautiful that anyone reading this can take something different and important from it.

overall, this is a beautiful account of a woman learning through trial and error to love herself, others and how she wants to be loved back.

I can truly recommend this to anyone who enjoys a hard hitting memoir that you will continue thinking about for a long long time. I advise you to please check the trigger warnings first, storygraph is a great resource for this.

Stunning. This is a raw, unflinching, and self-aware look at Steine's experiences with violence and pain throughout her life, contrasted with the gentle, nurturing love she finds later in adulthood and her resulting pandemic preganancy.

Throughout the book, Steines manages to capture the complexity of violence without proselytizing. As an animal welfare professional who's long grappled with the realities of cruelty toward and the death of animals, I particularly appreciated how Steines wove this topic into her discussion of violence without minimizing the impact it can have.

There was one quote at 57% that hit me like a punch to the gut and effectively summarized a feeling I often have. ""We are a culture of euphemism and sanitation, of chicken fingers, of nipple pasties, of boneless breasts. We too are a culture of violence, of feedlots, of rape, of roughness systematically applied to some while others clutch their pearls and say ""I can't watch that."" We lack hunger for truths about the violence we participate in. No one wants to watch the whipping scene in Roots. Nobody one wants to read exactly how Larry Nassar pushed his unwashed fingers inside childrens' vagina. Nobody wants to see the glistening organs of a freshly slaughtered pig. We want instead to cringe, to look away, and to affirm our humanity for doing so even as we claim ownership of land made fecund with slave labor, even as we settle into La-Z-Boy chairs to watch the thrilling performances of USA gymnastics, even as we contentedly wipe bacon grease off our chins.""

This book could have felt too dark without the balance of her love story with N. While the frequent jumping between story lines did feel a little jarring at times (I think listening to the audiobook may have exacerbated this issue), I'm not sure that there was a better way to accomplish what Steines did here. I left this difficult and graphic read feeling scraped raw but also ultimately hopeful and happy that Steines found love and happiness.

Huge thanks to NetGalley for this audiobook ARC.

Margo is pregnant and in quarantine. She has plenty of time to reflect on her past, when she was a professional, dominatrix, a welder, a farmer, and a mixed martial artist. She’s forced to contend with, and try to understand why she has always found ways to cause her self pain. This book was not really my cup of tea. Margo was an interesting character, but not a very likable one.