I couldn't get through this title. It ended up not being for me, but I hope it finds a hope with other readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A History of Scars by Laura Lee is a memoir that chronicles the author’s journey as a writer and a survivor of childhood abuse and mental illness. The book is honest, raw, and emotional, and it shows how Lee coped with her trauma and found healing through her creativity and passion. I found this book to be very engaging and relatable, as I could see myself in some of her struggles and achievements. I also learned a lot from her perspective and experiences, which were different from mine in other ways. I admired her courage and resilience, and I was inspired by her story. I would rate this book four to four and a half stars out of five, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys stories of overcoming adversity.

Honest, sharp, brutal (at times) collection of essays. Not a "fun read' but important/valuable to the collective of shared and lived experiences.

ARC from the publisher via NetGalley, but the opinions are my own.

I absolutely loved the writing style, honest and straightforward, you can easily follow the flow, what u love most is how Laura allows to know deeply her vulnerability and complex emotions, this a really emotional book, I couldn’t put it down.

"When you've suffered the abuses of family, it's hard to know what decency and kindness are. When you are this silent, you become a mirror to others and strangers alike."

Laura Lee (Korean American and queer), tackles subjects surrounding:
▪️ Mental health
▪️Sexuality
▪️ Cultural Identity
▪️ Structural violence and
▪️ Familial relationship
In her own personal, emotional, and psychological struggles in this essay #AHistoryOfScars

Trigger Warnings:
Domestic violence
Alzheimer
PTSD
Suicide Attempts
Dysfunctional family

Many thanks to @simonandschuster and @atriabooks for the #giftedcopy ARC

Touching, moving, and an excellent read. If we can’t understand each other, if we are always too afraid to listen to each other where does that leave us. Is this a hard read, yes it is. Does that mean it does not contain deep value worth reading? No, I would argue it definitely does warrant it.

The author takes us through her mental illness and events with her family. She tries to understand being ill and how she can enter relationships. She is rawly honest throughout.

The topics she speaks of effect just about every family in some way. Laura Lee does an honest job here of explaining the ups ans downs of her life. I think it is important to listen.

Thank you NetGalley, Laura Lee and Altria Books for providing a copy.

A heart rending and deeply impactful account of Lee's path through the trauma of mental and physical illness, and the ongoing journey of healing. At times I was rapt by her vulnerability and connective writing style, and at other times I was barely able to witness the devastation. For that reason, I skipped around a bit, as each essay had it's own tone. More than anything I was left feeling like Lee's story, and others like it, deserve to be honored and witnessed. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

A History of Scars is a deeply moving memoir about a woman’s personal account of the trauma she experienced as a child and the profound effects that it had on her growth into adulthood. One thing about Lee is that she is a fantastic writer. I felt everything she put into words, almost feeling it a little too deeply. Although she experienced so much trauma in her life, it was her strength to push through despite what her quality of life is and will be..and it is truly inspiring. What stuck out to me were these words: “I feel my limitations. I’m too sensitive for this world. And yet I’m here.” It’s through all of her trials that she has still found a place in the world where she feels love, and knows how to love.

Laura Lee, a bisexual Korean American woman, presents a memoir through essays of grief, trauma, abuse, and mental illness. Her writing demonstrates how any kind of recovery is not a straight or smooth process.

Lee’s memoir meanders. It dips and curves, repeats and double backs on itself, as her recovery does. Her writing can be vague sometimes, where she’ll reference one event before tripping over to something new. She interweaves the challenges of rock climbing, the comfort of cooking, a schizophrenic diagnosis, and a suicide attempt.

It feels odd commenting on a memoir, as it feels like commenting on a person. Lee has taken her worst moments, her breakdowns, her abuse, and put them all on the page. She shows others who have gone through similar circumstances that they are not alone. She writes directly, as if she is confessing to us the inner workings of her trauma.

There were some parts of her writing where I saw myself so clearly I felt breathless. I am grateful she’s shared her story, and I hope she has found some measure of peace.

overall, i really liked this memoir!! it was short and sweet at about 200 pages and i really think that while every section may not be everyone’s cup of tea, there are absolutely takeaways for everyone.

thoughts on this one:

- memoir by laura lee, a bisexual korean american
- explores the impacts of trauma and how different people process and live with it
- domestic abuse, suicidal thoughts, schizophrenia
- vulnerability is at the core of human experience
- seemingly insignificant moments that the author turns into meaningful lessons applicable to everyone
- emphasizes the danger of a single narrative, people don’t fit into neat and tidy boxes
- “listening without expectation, rather than dictating the terms of conversation”
- cultural significance of food and the experience of cooking

Upon learning that Laura Lee was a protege of Roxane Gay, I knew I absolutely had to read this. She did not let me down; this was a disturbing and beautiful (disturbingly beautiful? beautifully disturbing?) memoir that reached deep into my core. There is so much here, like Lee's upbringing with a mother with undiagnosed early onset Alzheimer's Disease and a father who was often violent. Add to that an emotionally volatile middle sister, and you have the kind of non-childhood that has lasting impacts. Lee also explores her Korean American and queer identity through the challenges and exertion of rock climbing, cooking from various cuisines, and the experience and diagnosis of a mental illness.
The writing itself is delicately crafted, and each word feels deliberate and measured. It meanders at times; the flow helps to create a feeling around the interrelated topics. I related to aspects of Lee's experience, and that made reading this memoir feel all the more personal. I was moved and hope that Ms. Lee was able to find some catharsis and/or healing in the process of producing this work.

"How does one capture a fair picture of a person,
if the pieces don't add up to what we expect?"

This book is complicated. It's reflective. Deeply personal. Ambiguous. Frustratingly vague. Misses the mark on one topic but then swoops in and hits it critically in another. You could say it mirrors a lot of the terrain in life. We are left with mess, with questions, with wanting more. We are also guided through Lee navigating queerness, abuse, mental health, identity, life as a immigrant's child, life as the child of a deteriorating parent. It's written in the forceful whisper of someone who has fought to find their footing.

Some of the most touching moments were shared as Lee delved into her personal relationship with her girlfriend. She writes tenderly, she writes hopefully, lovingly, curiously, gratefully, of her girlfriend. The story of her making her girlfriend's favorite dish was so endearingly and made me smile thoughtfully, reminding me of the first time I made biryani for my ex. It's a special moment, romantic or not, to reach out on a limb to try and make the comfort dish for another person.

That being said, I never feel fully comfortable "critiquing" someone's memoir, it's their life and only they truly know it. So, my critiques are only on how the writing felt seeping into me. I began to be put off by just how often she made sure the reader knew her girlfriend was Pakistani, as if her girlfriend did not exist outside of that. She made it a point to describe the nationality of everyone she knew, I'm not entirely sure why, it felt very oddly specific when placed against the general ambiguousness of the essays.

The essays feel deeply personal and vastly vague at the same time.

The first few essays hold the potential for power that just isn't found throughout the rest of the narrative (for me). I grew somewhat frustrated with the ambiguous nature of all the "big" things. Passing references to the whole reason she writes. Passive everything. I became lost among the intricate conversation of climbing. Honestly, I don't know how Lee managed to give so much feel of rawness while maintaining a cloak of mystery. Keeping a wall between herself and the reader while still sharing intimate details.

I suppose her schizophrenia diagnosis, which you don't learn about until the very end of the book, plays into the disassociated wedge that can be placed between the person and reality in order to maintain safety of your reality

My personal feelings aside, I recommend this book still. It's a voice that needs to be heard. Multiple stigmas that need to be shattered and spoken about. It addresses what it's like to watch your parents cognitive decline far before their time. It's a voice I haven't seen much in literature and that needs to be amplified.

BUT I JUST WANT TO SAY: I respect the heck out of Roxane Gay but good grief she isn't a deity okay? Laura Lee, you stand on your own two feet. I honestly feel like repeated mentions of Gay's impact in the making of the book did it a disservice. It casts a shadow over it instead of illuminating it. It must've been incredible to have an amazing person like Roxane be your mentor but your story is your own and your words are your own. The books needs its own space to flourish.

"To speak requires trust—that someone will listen."

There is a cathartic, confessional quality to Lee’s writing. These are essays that, unadorned, resist the narrativizing of queerness and race, of trauma, abuse, and mental illness, into sensational stories. I admit that I struggled with the initial essays, which were frank yet somehow ambiguous, a combination that didn’t personally work for me—but the later essays had me absolutely enraptured.

Above all, there is no doubt that the subject matter throughout this collection is significant and compelling, even as—or perhaps because—A History of Scars deliberately resists cohesion, instead embodying the nonlinearity that Lee espouses.

My favourite essays had to do with Lee’s Pakistani girlfriend—in their relationship, I saw mirrored many of my own insecurities but also hopes—and Lee’s relationship with food and cooking, where the prose lengthens, loosens, gathers steam and vibrancy and intimate resonance.

Bottom line: Regardless of my or anyone else’s opinion, this is an important book, a complex story. I am infinitely glad it has been spoken for me and others to listen.



Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely loved this essay compilation describing being Asian in America, mental health, and queerness.

Powerful and sometimes disturbing, this collection of essays tackles a myriad of hard hitting topics from immigration to gender identity. An important but difficult read. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to review this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Devastating and candid look at the body, gender and identity. So important to think through these questions of the body and fragility, especially now.

I read about 40% of this book and couldn't read any more. The book the train of thought - more like a verbal dumb- of a woman who is severely scarred by trauma in her life. Her relationships are tenuous due to her trauma...every thought in this book is about the trauma that she has endured and how it affects and will continue to affect her. There is no plot, no more than a chronicle of her thoughts.

What a stunning, heartbreaking work! Laura Lee's writing holds the tension between opposite experiences: unspeakable pain and uncontainable joy, intimacy and disconnection. Lee's storytelling includes just the right amount of detail and metaphor. The reader isn't abandoned to hopelessness in the face of her history of trauma, nor are they left free to imagine she's found The Answer to suffering. Lee's courage and strength shine through in every essay, and I can't wait to read more from her.