This memoir is well written but I found it quite jumbled. It felt like author was writing a journal of thoughts everyday and then published it as a book. Revisiting the blurb, it turned out that's how it is but I would have loved to have some flow in this random streàm of consciousness.

Jomé Rain is 22 years old sex worker and this memoir she has written during the COVID-19 pandemic. I realise that it was period of depression for most people. This book shows how difficult it was for Jomé, the vulnerability was portrayed delicately and it felt raw and exposed to read it.

There are many lines that I wanted to underline coz they were beautiful and overall I liked it, I just feel that if it had a fluency or rhythm to follow, I would have enjoyed it even more.

Some of my favourite quotes

So much of the pain that comes from other people's judgment of me is really my self-inflicted critique borrowing their voices in my head. Very rarely do people accuse me of the things I imagine them doing.


I never know what pushes a man to graduate from yelling to hitting. It was always a very thin line, in my experience.



Perspective is a funny thing, but sometimes all you need to do is speak.


Loving you is a ritual. One I am quite attached to.


Forever and always, I am reminded: Love is a process of release.

Thank you Netgalley and Querencia press for the wonderful ARC in exchange of an honest review.

This is a memoir, but it reads like poetry.

It's 2020, the quarantine has just started and the author takes a deep dive into her life and her thoughts while cutting apples in this mix of diary entry/unsent message/stream of consciousness.

She's going through a heartbreak and we join her in the path of self-reflection, grief, and healing. She's also trying to figure out her relationship with her family, learning who she is, and picking apart the elements of her own chaos in order to understand herself better.

We get to see her while she thoroughly takes apart her feelings about depression, anxiety, pain, and loss.

This book was a painful reminder of how confusing and overwhelming your early twenties can be. The "me" from the past resonated with a lot of her angst and struggles.

CW - domestic violence, thoughts of suicide

*Received through NetGalley

That was an absolutely stunning reading experience.

The book contains an abundance of quotable lines, and the writing just flows quite beautifully. While it's a memoir of short period in the author's life it really read more like poetry for most of it. The stream of consciousness format tends to be very hit or miss for me because it can easily expose the poverty of one's inner life but I found this one to be both relatable and insightful.

No star rating because I don't put star ratings on memoirs (giving a start rating on NetGalley because we can't give a feedback without one)..

Many thanks to Querencia Press for the digital review copy.

Cutting Apples by Jome Rain is a jewel of a book. Rain's stream of consciousness writing style may at first seem like an odd approach for a memoir, but it is perfect for this piece, one that was written during an odd time as the world struggled to make sense of COVID-19. Rain's memoir is written as an undated, ongoing letter to an unnamed love, a love not quite lost, but you feel the fragility of this relationship. Rain allows herself to be vulnerable, she tells her readers her fears, her heartaches, her insecurities and her hopes. She invites readers to witness a very personal analysis of her relationship with her mother; I found this quite affecting in its complete oppositeness to my own relationship with my mother. In reading Rain's memoir, I was driven to my own contemplation of the relationships in my life. Therein lies the power of this memoir, I think. Jome Rain has crafted an engaging book, opening herself to strangers to see her most private thoughts, and causing them to step away and look within themselves. I have read few memoirs that have caused me to do this. I cannot recommend this book enough. You will find yourself stopping to reread lines, to consider how they relate to your own experience. It will cause you to look within and consider what you have thought to be absolute.

An intimate and emotional stream of consciousness.

It's impossible to stop reading it, as it feels like peaking into the room of a young person trying to focus on their feelings. Jomé reminiscences about her past loves, her present, her life and her mum.

Cutting Apples is extremely relatable and reminded me of myself at her age. 100% recommended.
*Received through NetGalley