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My Body Is a Book of Rules Elissa Washuta Books

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My Body Is a Book of Rules Elissa Washuta Books

This book is not for the faint of heart. Washuta puts everything on the page as she takes you on her journey of a bi-polar life. Washuta does more than tell a story - she invites you inside her head to let you know what it's like from the driver's seat. If you become queasy reading the thoughts of a college student's brutal rape, and navigation through psychiatrists and her medicine cabinet full of psych meds, this is not the book for you. If you are ready to experience what it was like for Miss Washuta to wade through an acidic quagmire, then "Buckle yourself in - it's going to be a bumpy ride."

If you are looking for a book that goes from A to B in traditional ten page chapters, this is not that book. The author makes use (refreshingly so) of non-traditional text forms to tell a story. I especially enjoyed the untraditional use of footnotes. Don't pass these by.

At times I wanted to ask "Spirit, Are these the shadows of things that must be, or are they the shadows of things that MIGHT be?" as I peered from the author's robe. Of course, these are Washuta's shadows of what have already been and dark they are. We are witness to her rape and the high school/college age student's ever present search for her place in the world reaching for whatever branch can bring her ashore.

Washuta knows how to pace her story though so that just when you think you can endure no more, she switches gears introducing humor and an element of optimism without becoming too Pollyanna. This writer earned a capitol "W" in my book. Her lyrical prose puts her in the same league as Mary Karr (Liars' Club). The hardness of dealing with rape and bi-polar disorder is beautifully balanced with the fair-skinned Washuta's search for her Indian-ness in a culture that rates belonging by depth of skin tone.

If you are the sister, brother, parent, friend or teacher of someone who lives with bi-polar disorder, you owe it to yourself to read this book. If you are a college student, you owe it to yourself to read this book. If you are a high school student, you should probably read this book, just don't let your parents find it. (It's incredibly graphic.)

As horrific as the ride is, the ending is beautiful. Nuff said, well done.


Tags : Amazon.com: My Body Is a Book of Rules (9781597099691): Elissa Washuta: Books,Elissa Washuta,My Body Is a Book of Rules,Red Hen Press,1597099694,Native Americans,Indian women;North America;Biography.,Indians of North America;Biography.,Manic-depressive illness;Patients;United States;Biography.,Autobiography: general,BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY Cultural, Ethnic & Regional Native American & Aboriginal,BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY General,Biography,Biography & Autobiography,Biography Autobiography,BiographyAutobiography,FICTION Coming of Age,GENERAL,General Adult,HistoryNative American,Indian women,Indians of North America,Manic-depressive illness,Native American,Non-Fiction,North America,Patients,United States

My Body Is a Book of Rules Elissa Washuta Books Reviews

Loved this memoir. If you were a Native girl coming of age off the rez in the 90s and 2000s you will be able to relate. Washuta tells stories of mental health, sexual assault and Native identity in interesting and nostalgic forms, like an AIM chat room or a bibliography.
It's like Elissa Washuta can see the inside of my mind. We're both bipolar substance abusers from the midatlantic. She just gets me. Its freaky. Anyways, thank you Elissa Washuta for inspiring me to enter adult life, and to try to have a future as a bipolar person. I have also watched every episode of law and order svu! all 19 seasons. i admire you. we also both went to catholic school.
I will often refer to having visceral reactions to especially poignant or relatable storytelling, but to call this a gut-punch or a heartbreak would be a disservice to the all-encompassing and transformative feeling that rushed through my bloodstream at several points in this book. As someone who shares many experiences of medicine, identity, violence, and language with Washuta, I felt not only witnessed but healed by her articulation of living in so many of the spaces that people call "liminal" but are actually forever verging, unsettled, and unspoken.
Elissa’s Washuta’s first book “My Body is a Book of Rules” serves up her realities surrounding mental illness, sexual assault and ethnic identity with no apologies. This lyric memoir takes an unconventional approach to craft through her distinct stylistic choices. From an essay that is, in essence, a reverse-chronological order listing of the people she’s slept with to a bibliography themed essay and even a Law and Order SVU scripted essay, Elissa Washuta makes daring technique choices. Her memoir generates good reading material for anyone studying craft. Breaking free of the standard memoir structure, she credits Mark Z. Danielewski’s “House of Leaves” for helping her come to the realization that when it came to her writing she “could do whatever the hell [she] wanted.” While I felt that there were places where I wanted Washuta to dig a little deeper or analyze connections between concepts such as promiscuity and bi-polar disorder, I still value this book for its attempts to shed light on heavy topics from an often marginalized perspective. And there is no denying that Washuta is a skilled wordsmith. Her written voice is marked by a witty and often sarcastic, dark sense of humor.
As other reviews/ reviewers have noted, My Body can topically be a difficult book to read (rape, illness, historical atrocities, modern prejudices, and the interconnectedness of all these forces on the author’s’ life). But in the words of Teddy Roosevelt, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

And yet, and yet!, as (the internet says) Lao Tzu said, "All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small." This book that covers intense varieties of pain, victimhood, and confusion (from Latin confusio(n-), from the verb confundere ‘mingle together’) is simultaneously notable for its total clarity of tone, masterly sentence-to-sentence writing, and an easy-breezy play with a wide (and challenging) range of (mostly original, I would say) invented forms.

Sometimes I find myself unexcited or unchallenged by Literature (reader blames herself, no one else; it's just a state I find myself in when my reading list needs a shake-up). From a craft standpoint and a humanistic one, too, Washuta's book is just the type of antidote/ prescription I find myself needing for a case of the Reading Blahs. I closed My Body with a sense of great possibility and inspiration to "keep on keeping on" with my own life struggles including the often-difficult task of empathizing with others.
This book is not for the faint of heart. Washuta puts everything on the page as she takes you on her journey of a bi-polar life. Washuta does more than tell a story - she invites you inside her head to let you know what it's like from the driver's seat. If you become queasy reading the thoughts of a college student's brutal rape, and navigation through psychiatrists and her medicine cabinet full of psych meds, this is not the book for you. If you are ready to experience what it was like for Miss Washuta to wade through an acidic quagmire, then "Buckle yourself in - it's going to be a bumpy ride."

If you are looking for a book that goes from A to B in traditional ten page chapters, this is not that book. The author makes use (refreshingly so) of non-traditional text forms to tell a story. I especially enjoyed the untraditional use of footnotes. Don't pass these by.

At times I wanted to ask "Spirit, Are these the shadows of things that must be, or are they the shadows of things that MIGHT be?" as I peered from the author's robe. Of course, these are Washuta's shadows of what have already been and dark they are. We are witness to her rape and the high school/college age student's ever present search for her place in the world reaching for whatever branch can bring her ashore.

Washuta knows how to pace her story though so that just when you think you can endure no more, she switches gears introducing humor and an element of optimism without becoming too Pollyanna. This writer earned a capitol "W" in my book. Her lyrical prose puts her in the same league as Mary Karr (Liars' Club). The hardness of dealing with rape and bi-polar disorder is beautifully balanced with the fair-skinned Washuta's search for her Indian-ness in a culture that rates belonging by depth of skin tone.

If you are the sister, brother, parent, friend or teacher of someone who lives with bi-polar disorder, you owe it to yourself to read this book. If you are a college student, you owe it to yourself to read this book. If you are a high school student, you should probably read this book, just don't let your parents find it. (It's incredibly graphic.)

As horrific as the ride is, the ending is beautiful. Nuff said, well done.