Description
Book SynopsisIn this poignant and unabashed self-examination, Seema Reza uncovers the lessons she learned through motherhood and a dysfunctional and abusive marriage, and how she used her discoveries to make a meaningful difference in the world. This lyrical, non-linear narrative memoir traces Reza’s journey from repressed suburban housewife to coordinator of a unique creative-expression military hospital program. Through observing her own experiences from the darkest moments of her life and investigating societal attitudes towards loss, love, motherhood, and community, Reza exposes her triumphs, weaknesses, fears and regrets, and undermines the idea that strength requires silence.
Trade Review**A NewPages Book Stand Editor's Pick: June 2016
“The author writes with self-lacerating honesty. . . . Blurring boundaries, Reza exercises literary license and often writes with poetic power.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“There are long tones of loneliness, self-discovery, and memory in Seema Reza’s lyrical memoir. . . . Her prose is smooth and blurred at the same time, like tears spilled on a manuscript page. The words are powerful enough to reach past the lines and gut-punch us. Abuse, selfishness, loss, all of it is hidden within her text, whether broken up in fluid experimental stanzas or rigid static prose. Like water, When the World Breaks Open takes on many forms and shapes to articulate Reza’s journey into adulthood while navigating motherhood at the same time. . . . It is her self-reflection which empowers this memoir; her responsibility to take action for herself and not to languish as she was. She asserts that 'in order to survive [your life] . . . [you] must learn to recognize [your] emotions' and the 'trauma that brought you here will not be the last one you face. Life will keep hitting you.' Reza seems determined to hit back.”
—Entropy Literature Review
