Welcome to Litsy!

Kiese‘s writing is raw and unflinching. He speaks to the repeated trauma of being Black in America. How that hurt sometimes comes from those who love us best. He addresses what it means to have a Black body that stays heavy with the secrets and scars it carries no matter what number the scale shows.

The sentence describing an encounter with a policeman hit hard after reading James: “That fool got madder because you were speaking correct English.”

Heavy content for sure. 💔
Beautiful and raw memoir.

Please help me choose which books to take to the mountains!! 🏔️ I‘m so indecisive!! 🤷🏻‍♀️ What are your recommendations?! 📚🎄

#LitsyLove
#LitsyLoveReads

This was beautiful. Very painful and relatable, but beautiful.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I recently signed up on the fable app to join LeVar Burton‘s Book Club. There‘s a several months wait list for the club‘s current read Heaven and Earth at the Grocery Store with local library, interloans, and on the libby app. Since last month‘s tagged book is available I‘ll be listening to that one for the #rushathon.

@DieAReader @Andrew65 @GHABI4ROSES

Heavy is an appropriate title for his book.

This book was so, so, so good! I'm not a huge audiobook lover, but listening was a great way to take in Kiese's story. Hearing it told in his own voice (literally and figuratively) was fantastic. He tackles some pretty tough issues in his life ("heavy" topics, you could say), but the telling was almost poetic. Glad I finally read this!

Even better, it knocks off a book on my #rolldecember list (so glad I found you, @PuddleJumper !).

Incredible writing, on some (excuse the pun) heavy topics. A look at Laymon's childhood and relationship with his mother and how his trauma manifested into body dysmorphia, gambling addiction, and how it affected his relationships. A raw and open book that felt incredibly personal.

Resist Books you had me at hello! Resist Books launched their online store last week and I‘ve been over the moon. #resistbooks #heavy #selfcareforblackwomen

Book 20

I listened to Heavy by Kiese Laymon. It's a memoir about weight, sexual abuse, and race written to the author's mother. While well-written, it's very emotionally disturbing and difficult to read. 3.5 stars

Oh my. What a book. Yes! Kiese thank you for your transparency

Something I think everyone needs to read. I went into these memoir knowing nothing and came out with a new perspective on what it means to find truth and tell it. It‘s heart breaking and angering at the same time. Definitely a book that will stay with me for a long time.

"Unacknowledged scars accumulated in battles won often hurt more than battles lost."

My reread of this memoir is wrecking me all over again.

LOVE this book 🖤 it‘s written and read beautifully, poetically, honestly. I went on long walks with this one just so I could listen to it. I don‘t re-read often but I would listen to this again. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Using for something by a POC #nonfiction2021

"...the most abusive parts of our nation obsessively neglect yesterday while peddling in possibility. I remembered that we got here by refusing to honestly remember together. I remembered that it was easier to promise than it was to reckon or change."

I‘m supposed to have all this done by the end of the month for various book clubs 😦

In this memoir addressed to his mother, Laymon shares the weight of being a black boy and man in the U.S., childhood trauma, romantic and familial relationships, gambling addiction, body dysmorphia, and disordered eating/exercising. It feels rare to hear a cis man openly talk about their experiences with the latter. Not an easy read but I'm glad to have read it.

Amazing experience on audio! Dunno how he did that. Hope this read makes me a more compassionate student and teacher. Oberlin & Vassar connections.

The sheer talent, tenacity & heart that the author exhibits in his memoir is astounding. As Laymon dissects his relationship with his body, writing, addiction & family, he explores the weight that black bodies carry and how this weight, perceived by society as dangerous & disposable, is rooted deeply in American society. Layered and complex, this memoir felt like the the truest representation of a human and of a black man living in America.

Wow. This one will stick with me a long while. A memoir that is honest and painful and lyrical all at the same time. This is my first Laymon, but How to Slowly Kill Yourself and others in America is definitely getting moved up on my list now. Highly recommend!

Listening to this memoir blew me away. It was beautiful and heart-breaking. Listening to him grappling with his childhood, his relationship with his mother, his body, his career, traum andhow all of it was impacted by racism (both explicit and systemic) was so compelling. I listened to it in 2 stints. Highly recommend.

65:2020

This is my first audio read and his voice turns prose into poetry! Kiese writes this to his mother about their tumultuous relationship. How they brought out the best and worst in each other. It is also about how Black bodies are used and abused in society as well as how he abused his own through weight loss and gain. A short, but very deep read. 5⭐️ #reread #audiobook

I can‘t believe I left it so long to read this! This was so special and original and I loved how Kiese didn‘t reduce down any of the complexity in his story. He let himself and so many other people have so many layers. The writing about his body is probably what will stick with me most though. I‘ve never read such raw, profound writing about a Black man‘s relationship with his body.

His writing style is dream-like. I became attached to the author as a character and was rooting for him the whole way.

“America seemed filled with violent people who like causing people pain but hate when those people tell them that pain hurts.“
This book was beautiful. There is a lot to process in it. Laymon flows from story to story of abuse he's faced and how his trauma manifested and always came back to the metaphor of being heavy. Being black in america is heavy, but heavy and black in america is heavy. The emotional, physical, mental trauma.. is heavy.

So there are some great deals today on BIPOC authors in the US.

Heavy I read as an audiobook, and I highly recommend! The deal today is on the Kindle ebook.

I read Elizabeth Acevedo‘s second book, so I‘m excited to go back and read her first, especially since I‘ve heard it‘s great on audio!

I also picked up the Ward both on Kindle and I added the audiobook for just $3.99. I‘m really excited to read her nonfiction.

#integrateyourshelf

Beautifully written, difficult but important to read. Truly heavy on the mind and soul.

“I wanted to write a lie. You wanted to read that lie. I wrote this to you instead.”

I‘ll be thinking about this book for a while.

An incredibly timely and valuable memoir. Laymon‘s writing is heart wrenching and beautiful at the same time. I feel privileged to have read it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of my library hauls from the early days of COVID-19. Seems an appropriate time to start this one.

“I wanted to write a lie. You wanted to read that lie. I wrote this to you instead”

@kieselaymon

“Most days my body did not want to practice, but I convinced it that sitting still and writing were a path to memory.”

“We were both telling the truth.”
“We were both lying.”
“We were both telling the truth.”

“There was no wealth in our family, you told me more than once. There were only paydays.”

“We cannot live healthy lives in the present if we drown ourselves in the past.”

Some broken folk do whatever they can not to break other folk. If we‘re gone be broken, I wonder if we can be those kind of broken folk from now on. I think it‘s possible to be broken and ask for help without breaking other people.

I do not know how to begin describing this book.
Someone said it‘s a book everyone with a mother should read. It‘s also a book everyone with a body should read.
Our bodies are not just vehicles for our sentience. They are sentient. They are us.
I am so tired after reading this.
I am not the “us” of this book. It is not for me. It is for Mary, and it is for Black mamas and babies. But, in a way, it is for all of us.

This is my first book of 2020 and it was EXCEPTIONAL!!!! This memoir is poignant, real, and raw. It emotionally took me out! Released in 2019, Heavy was probably one of the best American memoirs of the year. I highly recommend it!

Been listening to Heavy lately and it's amazing. I don't really love memoirs, generally, but this holds so many layers of experience, speaks with such honesty and love and genuine confusion about both. But also style, bold confidence in language, resilience, and "that Black abundance".

What I think of this book does not matter. This book was not written for me. I found it brutal, beautiful, disturbing and poetic. In its form it reminds me of On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous. It is a letter from a son written to a single mother.

Completely forgot to review this after finishing it last week! This was recommended to me by one of my professors and although I had heard of it I had no idea how vast this memoir was.
It's written as a (love?) letter to his mother, both a perpetrator of violence against Laymon and at the same time his only protector. Laymon explores what violence (domestic, racist, systemic) does to a non-normative, black, obese body in America.

Starting this memoir today. I have read some great reviews! #NFNov #nonfictionnovember

I've spent most of today in the car. Dropping off and picking up people at school, the orthodontist, and the airport. I'm pooped!
The only upside is all that driving meant I listened to about half of this memoir. It is beautiful, important, and heavy.
#TIL The name Kiese means joy.
#nfnov @Clwojick @rsteve388

My #weeklyforecast. Finish a few. Start some others. Mostly trying to read for #nfnov.
@cinfhen @Clwojick @rsteve388

Currently listening to - Heavy by Kiese Laymon

A great book in many ways and quite an important work I would say, but it did get a little tedious past the halfway point and lost its impact. Brilliant writing though.

Excellent memoir. Raw and real.

As it says on the tin, this was heavy in subject matter. A memoir about Kiese‘s teen/early adult years, it deals with sexism and racism and health and abuse. I found it to be well written and insightful. The audiobook experience was superb; it‘s read by the author.

Heavy is at the top of my stack for the Eudora Welty Writers‘ Symposium. KieseLaymon will be our keynote author, October 10-12, 2019, at Mississippi University for Women!

Heavy is on the top of my stack for the Eudora Welty Writers‘ Symposium. Kiser Laymon will be our keynote author, October 10-12, 2019, at Mississippi University for Women.

I listened to this one on audiobook and had to pause, rewind, and take a moment to let the words sink in multiple times each chapter. Laymon is a beautiful writer and this book flayed me. If you want to grapple with identity, race, abuse, family dynamics, truth/lies, trust and just about anything else, let Laymon guide you. Can't recommend highly enough.