"What My Bones Know," by Stephanie Foo

Genre: Nonfiction/Autobiography

Page Count: 300+

Published: 2022 (Random House)

Potential Triggers: Swearing, Drinking/Drugs, Abuse, Divorce, Mentions Genitals,

Mental Health Topics: C-PTSD (Complex Trauma), Anxiety,

What My Bones Know has to be one of my favorite memoirs/autobiographies to date. Beginning with her childhood, author Stephanie Foo writes about the struggles she went through and her fight to get to a good spot.

One of the things that struck me the hardest in this book was her honesty about the confusion of what she remembered correctly and what got twisted around. Her honesty in her emotions, her well-written sentences building paragraphs whose composition was far beyond what I could explain in my own words. She's smart, but she's also not afraid to talk simply. She doesn't hide behind big words and instead lets the scenery that she paints speak for itself. Overall, it creates a poignant and heartfelt memoir/autobiography that I can't believe I got to read.

If I had to summarize my favorite part about this book, it would be how you can really connect to her feelings, who she felt she was, and what she went through over the course of writing this book. In one quote, she said: "I am the trauma you bury away. I am the lie you hold under your tongue, the thing you bury, vanish, erase, the thing you can almost pretend is forgotten as long as you don't touch it." That is the kind of beauty that this book encapsulated, the kind of broken wonder that can only occur after someone has hit rock bottom and worked their way back up.

This book is one that taught me a lot. Even though C-PTSD isn't seen as a disorder in the DSM-5, I totally support it being one, same as I do SPD. What this does make me wonder, though, is how much research is out there about C-PTSD that's being ignored? How much more could we delve into as a society and just make people aware of? Are we capable of making them see that this disorder matters? That's it's valid and worthy of research and dedicated treatment?

I'd absolutely recommend What My Bones Know to anyone who's curious about complex trauma and/or C-PTSD, to anyone who's interested in seeing just how much people can go through and yet still have a wonderful life after, and to regain some hope that there may not be a cure but that there are steps that can be taken to change where you are at any given moment.

One thing that I especially loved was that it was written like a story where things unfolded and everything came together by the end into one complete picture rather than fragments of a shattered past. It's similar to piecing together a stained glass window, you need to cut the glass in order to make the masterpiece, and each piece may not go in chronologically, but in the end, it all comes together. So if you're ready to dive into an adventure like what I've tried to describe, I would wholeheartedly recommend this book. It was definitely a 5/5 star read!