Trauma Plot: A Life

by Jamie Hood

From a rising literary star and the author of How to Be a Good Girl comes a brilliant, biting, and beautifully wrought memoir of trauma and the cost of survival

In the thick of lockdown, 2020, poet, critic, and memoirist Jamie Hood published her debut, How to Be a Good Girl, an interrogation of modern femininity and the narratives of love, desire, and violence yoked to it. The Rumpus praised Hood's “bold vulnerability,” and Vogue named it a Best Book of 2020. 

In Trauma Plot, her long-awaited follow-up, Hood turns her eye to the archetype of the rape survivor, who must perform penitence long after living through the unthinkable. In her trademark blend of memoir and criticism, Hood investigates the lives of art's most infamous women, from Ovid's Philomela and David Lynch’s Laura Palmer to Artemisia Gentileschi, the painter who captured Judith’s wrath—as well as Hood herself, reckoning with three decades of sexual violence and the wreckage left behind. In so doing, she What do we as a culture demand of survivors? And what do survivors, in turn, owe a world that has abandoned them? 

Trauma Plot is a scalding work of personal and literary criticism. It is a send-up of our culture's pious disdain for “trauma porn,” a dirge for the broken promises of #MeToo, and a paean to life after death.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Feminism, LGBT, Queer, Biography Memoir, Biography

314 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 25, 2025

Reviews

[Meike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jamie Hood was raped three times within two years, one incident a gang rape committed by five men, and in this experimental memoir, she ponders how trauma can be talked about and dealt with. An important starting point is Parul Sehgal's essay "The Case Against the Trauma Plot", in which Sehgal argues that if narratives let trauma trump everything else, "the trauma plot flattens, distorts, reduces character to symptom, and, in turn, instructs and insists upon its moral authority" - but as the subtitle of her memoir shows, Hood argues that the trauma of sexual violence is not a plot point in the first place, it's pervasive. Rape culture is nothing new, the text for instance refers to Philomela from Metamorphoses who was raped and violently silenced. If anything, Hood will not be silenced.

The book is structured in four parts (plus an introduction that discusses the ultimate trauma plot novel, A Little Life): "She" is set in October 2012 and plays on Mrs. Dalloway, introducing grad student Jamie H. who is haunted by the specter (hence traumatic memory) of her rapist, the Diplomat. "I", told in the first-person, takes place in February 2013, and contextualizes the second rape, which involves drugs, with other kinds of violence. In "You", the "I" and the title-giving "You" are in conversation, giving new depths to the themes of alienation, dissociation, and shame related to sexual violence, while presenting diary entries that involve various kinds of self-harm and suicidal ideation. Finally, "We" shows the survivor working with a therapist.

The genius is that the memoir elaborates on one person's, the author's, experience, but the aesthetic choices allow her to still show multiple perspectives, to form a mosaic pondering the individual repercussions as they interact with the societal climate. The trauma plot discussion is one about representation per se and justice through representation in particular, for instance regarding who constitutes an acceptable victim. Sure, what Hood does is confessional writing, but it's formally daring and also doesn't shy away from describing rape in such gruesome detail that it made me think of the infamous tunnel scene in "Irréversible".

I admit that lately, I've been wondering whether the whole autofiction / confessional / memoir trend hasn't been overdone and thus exhausted, but books like this show that of course, it's not about genre, it's about how well it is done, about the creative potential and narrative ability of the author. And Jamie Hood is fantastic.

[kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astounding.

Split in to four parts—four voices: She, I, You, We—Trauma Plot is Hood’s exploration of love, trauma, female existence, and violence against women. Gazing on different pieces of literature as well as her own personal experiences, Hood begs the question: how do survivors of violence, specifically women, exist in a world that has failed them time and time again; a world that tells them the “right” way to act in the face of such violence; a world that tells them it’s their fault.

I suppose I could start by saying… Hood can write. Really, really write. She has a strong, bold, unapologetic voice that this world needs. I was immediately taken with her storytelling and found myself so drawn to her words even though they were surrounding a topic that nobody ever wants to have to face. The way she plays with the narrative voice is a unique and fascinating approach to memoir that I absolutely relished in.

It is worth mentioning for readers who may be triggered by it that there are descriptive scenes of sexual violence and many mentions of suicidal ideation in this book but it is not for the sake of trauma porn. Rather, it helps shine a light on the ramifications of rape; the shared experience of victims; and educates on the cultural demands and perceptions placed on those who have experienced sexual trauma.

It’s an important piece of work albeit a heavy one; truly astonishing. I can't wait for others to read it and love it.
Thank you Pantheon for the early copy in exchange for an honest review. Available Mar. 25 2025

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

But why should I make my rape book artful? Why be cowed by this obligation. Shouldn’t trauma be a mess? What if I let it be a performance, a public flaying—is it not better to provoke than appease? I won’t prettify it. And I can’t trust any impulse to aestheticize my violation. It’s an unsettling imperative. It pivots on the belief I might make my rapes beautiful, and then who would I be?

I first came across Jamie Hood through her sharp introduction to Kate Zambreno's Heroines and loved her voice and stringent commentary so much that it felt like a match that her own Trauma Plot was published earlier this year. And this book cements my first impression of Hood as a probing, interrogative intelligence that is not content with following the status quo.

Based on her own horrific experiences of rape and sexual violence, Hood recounts not just the events of what happened to her but the ways in which culture - even through #MeToo and other feminist/activist projects - still wants to see rape in certain ways. Hood questions not just the victimhood narrative but also the survivor one. She also thinks about the uneasy relationship between individual and community narrative - both the way rape (and femicide) are global pandemics that are not treated as such and what that might mean to an individual woman processing her local trauma.

The end result is a messy book but one which embraces that messiness in a positive way. Importantly, this is never glib. It doesn't have answers. It doesn't counsel other women or victims. It even self-consciously thinks about the relationship between rape and writing - specifically using the Philomela myth - and what it means to speak rape. Hood's own assaults happened in the past, but she's speaking of them now. This is not posed as any kind of 'cure' or panacea - but it makes for a raw, brittle read that feels necessarily unfinished but authentic to the moment of creation.

[ritareadthat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Screeching halt. It wasn't until I was 83% into this book that I found out that the author was transgender. Hold the phone - what?! You heard me. I think this is one of the only times I can recall being absolutely flabbergasted in the midst of reading. Like really and truly. It's not a bad thing, not at all, I just wasn't EXPECTING it.

Before I get ahead of myself, a quick summary - this is a true life account of the multiple rapes that the author endured as an adult over several years, and how she coped (or didn't cope). She also writes about her life in the present day and her approach to processing it through therapy. She also details (briefly) the abuse she suffered as a child, teen and young adult. The book is broken up into four parts, and the author plays with different forms of narrative in each.

Let's return to what I was saying about gender. The author wrote this from a very almost - dare I say it - heterosexual perspective. It isn't until the book is nearing it's end when we learn that she is transgender. Maybe this was her intention. Maybe there were subtle hints earlier on and I missed them somehow, but honestly, going into this blind and knowing nothing about this author, well, I was just left dumbfounded.

I honestly found out that she was trans by accident, I was nearly finished with the book when I was sidetracked by something she mentioned. This took me to Google, and one thing led to another and down the Google rabbit hole I went. There was an article that I happened upon that included just one brief blurb about her being a trans woman - and then I was literally like, "Wait, what?!" I was so surprised I could have fallen off of a chair (if I was sitting on one) instead of lounging on the couch.

I don't know if this was an intentionality on the part of the author so as not to influence the reader. Or, if it is an attestment to her stellar writing skills. Whether it was intentional or not, it was brilliantly - just BRILLIANTLY executed. Her writing is breathtaking - in structure, style and content. Instead of spotlighting the fact that she was transgender and raped, she told it (mostly) from her viewpoint of being a woman and being raped, as she should. Patriachy and misogyny are still so prevalent in today's society. And just as in the past, it can be mostly ignored and swept under the rug. And I can only - ONLY - imagine how much more difficult it is for a trans woman.

There is absolutely NO QUESTION about the writing talent this author has. Absolutely remarkable. She is razor-sharp in so many ways. Yet she also throws out that kind of manic / stream of consciousnesses / mental-health-disorder / trauma style of writing that I have recognized in many other writers who suffer from trauma and mental health disorders. I have recognized it in myself with my own writing at times. But don't allow me to give you the wrong idea. Her writing is very polished, and one is able to perceive that she is well educated and that she has written literary criticism as well.

She addresses what it means to be a survivor, and what society owes survivors. I expand upon this - as not just addressing rape - but surviving anything traumatic. It's f*cking hard. I'm a survivor. It's not an attractive label to wear. People don't want to hear about your trauma. So you go to therapy every week and you try to make sense of it. You try to exist every day the best you can. But reading books like this - it helps. It truly does. Jamie you helped me! I don't know if you read any of these reviews, but if you do, thank you! It means the world to me that you put yourself and your experience out into the world.

Sensitivity Warnings : Rape, drug and alcohol use, childhood abuse, transphobia, misogyny, explicit sexual content

Highly Recommend To : People who aren't afraid to read about the ugly truth of life, lovers of memoirs / autobiographies, LGBTQ nonfiction, also those who enjoy lots of literary references in their books. The author is very well-read and isn't afraid to show it.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not uncommon for me to skip a book or a film because the subject matter looks too heavy. But I know how important it is to look right at difficult things and Trauma Plot is not just an example of why, it's an explanation. Hood's introduction tackles this head on, responding specifically to the pushback against "confessional" writing, stories told mostly by women about their traumas. There is value here, Hood insists, and she goes on to prove her point in the work of memoir that follows.

Hood's traumas--the book focuses on three rapes over a 3-ish year period, though we eventually learn that she experienced even more in her childhood--are awful, of course. But the consideration of trauma also opens things up, it unlocks parts of your mind. You find commonalities, you find connections. And you start to ask yourself the kinds of questions that are necessary to process trauma, to move on from it. It is all tied together in a strange, sticky way and perhaps that is why Hood's book works so well. Because she is not trying to do one simple thing. She lets us sit in, in a way, as she considers and examines and tries to figure out how to even tell these stories and what it means to try and tell them.

There are several sections and the voice shifts in each. This could feel like a gimmick but it works well. I especially found myself entranced by the final section, where Hood focuses on her sessions with a therapist as she tries to write this book, on how she feels, on what sticks out, on how it impacts her process. It's a fascinating kind of confessional writing, to confess about the confessing, but I hung on every word.

It is not that Hood is trying to be unflinching or that she wants to obscure the truth. These stories come out differently because of who she was when they happened, the way her life unfolded. Some of these stories we get more of the detail around the rape and others we get less. And there are long stretches of time where there is nothing about rape at all because the Jamie of that moment is doing so much work to hide it from herself. That obfuscation is part of it just like the traumatic event is. The hiding, the unveiling, the consideration, all these pieces of a traumatic event are part of this story.

Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give is that Hood made me think a lot about my own traumas. I started to consider for the first time that I can use that word for specific events where I have previously hesitated to do so. That stigma against the traumatized woman is a very real thing, but spending so much time with Hood as she both ignored and looked at her traumas showed me the times I had done the same thing in my own life.

Hood asks herself more than once what the point is of sharing all of this. I don't think there is a single reason, I think there are infinite reasons.

I did this on audio, as I tend to do with memoir, and found Hood a straightforward and competent reader.

It's worth noting that while Hood is a trans woman, this is a book that you could read half of before you even realized this. It is alluded to, mostly implicitly, from time to time. But this is not a book that focuses on queer suffering, it is concerned much more with the role of patriarchy and misogyny in rape.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can recall at least twice when reading this magnificent book that I set it down momentarily, lapped a tear threatening to fall, and said out loud to myself "Oh My Fucking God." OMFG! This stunning book by Jamie Hood is a powerful self-excavation in four parts, separated by narrative voice: She, I, You, and We. The effect of Hood's formally innovative text is that it reads, at times, like a novel, then a memoir, and mostly it feels like something in between, transcendental and nearly mystical in its power. Hood's prose is beautiful and entirely her own; her gifts as a reader and writer make her a uniquely prescient voice in criticism. Here she turns that piercing eye to the s(h)elf: you'll be amazed what she finds.

[Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

devoured this in one sitting. so grateful for my friend friend who gifted me this book at the exact moment i needed it

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty astounding. The intro is breathtaking and an excellent primer of what’s to come. Part I was a little heady and hard for me personally to wrap my head around but once I realized how each section would contextualize and analyze each portion of Jamie’s story I was like ok got it thanks. The last section is pretty singular. The book on the whole is extremely heavy and I wouldn’t really recommend reading over half of it in a day but here I am having done that.

[Fredrik deBoer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has been widely interpreted as a response to Parul Seghal's trauma plot essay. In a sense, the reviews here underline part of Seghal's point: when real trauma becomes your writing's subject matter, people are going to ferociously defend the validity of the trauma rather than the writing. They review the author's right to be traumatized rather than the artistic expression of the trauma, to say nothing of the wisdom of the trauma plot in the terms set by Seghal and criticized - but still ultimately accepted - by Jamie Hood.

You might complain that that's a metadiscursive point about the literary culture the book exists in, not about the book, but then that's Hood's whole game here, not mine; she and the book set those terms of engagement. This is a book about the conditions of its own reception, which is interesting but ultimately tiresome. Either way, the book's complaint is metatextual and thus so is my complaint about the book. Which feels like another point for Seghal to me....

[Lauren Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been a fan of Jamie’s writing for years now. Her pre-op diary substack post brought tears to my eyes, and I have continually reread her piece on Annie Ernaux published by The Baffler. All’s to say, I had high hopes and expectations which have been exceeded! Months after finishing, I find myself still mulling and thinking about it. The writing is compulsively readable but does deal with difficult subject matter that could definitely be triggering for sexual assault/violence. After finishing part one, I did have to take a break but ended up finishing the last two-thirds all in one sitting. Tears streaming down my face all the while. I have already pre-ordered a copy and look forward to pouring over Jamie’s words again.

Thank you to Penguin Random House for an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely staggering

[Marl · Rating 2 out of 5]

[2 stars]

Trauma Plot is a confessional narrative memoir about the three unconnected rapes that Jamie Hood experienced in her twenties and her life between and surrounding them. Despite the horrible and graphic descriptions of what happened to her and how the events impacted her life in this memoir, I found myself very ambivalent to the final project itself. I think a lot of my ambivalence is due to my dislike of personal narrative memoirs, which I did not realize this book was so heavily so going into. Beyond that, I am not in love with Hood’s voice or style of writing.

I did read, though admittedly not very deeply, Sehgal’s essay in the New Yorker “The Case Against the Trauma Plot”, which Hood discusses (without naming it) in the wonderful introduction and comes back to in the end of the memoir. In terms of the argument of the essay, of the titular trauma plots flattening characters to a single, expected response to trauma, I don’t really know where I stand. I agree with Seghal that there are so many more responses to trauma that should be explored by writers and biographers, but I also commend Hood for her support of the trauma plot and her own response to her traumas (mostly). No matter how I write about my somewhat negative opinion of the memoir as a whole, I do truly commend Hood’s decision to write this and explore the overwhelming presence of rape in a person’s life and the unfiltered ways that trauma affects them.

The introduction of this memoir was an incredible piece of analytical writing. In it, Hood discusses #MeToo and the response to rape in a post #MeToo world, the novel A Little Life and her appreciation and how she relates to its portrayal of unconnected repeated abuse against its main character (which is heavily criticized by many critics and readers), and a comparison between herself and “iconic” raped women in popular culture, most specifically Philomela from Ovid’s Metamorphosis. I found the widespread and almost scattered nature of this introduction similar to a shotgun blast. We move from point to point in a fluid and impatient way, as though Hood knows her time is limited and wants us to meet her at all of her points. I loved her voice in this introduction more than any other point of the book and felt that I could really understand what she had to say regarding her arguments, critiques, and general points. This was such a good piece of writing that I kept waiting for the rest of the memoir to pick back up on. Until Part Four, it did not at all.

Part One, titled “She” is told in the third person and follows Hood in a single day in her life months after her first rape. She moves around her apartment and job at the university, plans for a party tonight, and is haunted by a shadowed spector who appears to her at times. This culminates in her finally being able to remember anything at all about her rape from months earlier.

Hood writes of the spector, an obvious stand-in for her trauma, very well. The initial fear and refusal to acknowledge turning into a confusing familiarity along with the knowledge that it will end up destroying her if she does not reckon with it is portrayed well. However, this is housed within a very dull narrative of a twenty-something year old woman’s average day living in Boston.

This was, by far, the worst section of the novel. I do not care to read about a person’s daily life, work, and relationship drama. It’s dull. I always feel bad about describing a memoir as “dull” because it is just the author’s life - and I live a very dull life myself - but it was a slog to read through. The only thing that kept me going was the anticipation for a return to the analytical style from the introduction, which never came.

Hood writes in this very flowery, poetic style of prose. It is forced and overdone to a distracting point (though, the narrative is so dull that any distraction might be necessary). At one point she mocks an ex-boyfriend (rightfully so, he sounds like he sucked) for being a poet and using the largest and most intentionally confusing words in his arguments with her, and the entire time I was thinking to myself “you’re doing the same thing!” Of course, a man intentionally confusing you and using large words in arguments to make you feel stupid is very different than an intentional writing choice in a memoir, but the feeling was still there. It’s like she looked at the diaries she kept at this time of her life and, when transcribing to print, subbed out every other word with the longest, most underused word she could find in the thesaurus. ”If, in the moment of rupture, she was unable to pinpoint the genesis of their disassembly, she found in his intractability on the subject of the flowers an effortless truth…” Is an example. Though this lesson in later parts (or maybe I just got used to it), it greatly took away from the story she was telling.

Part Two, titled “I”, is leagues better and is told in a standard first person POV. I still found it just okay, but it was a breath of fresh air compared to Part One. Here, Hood describes her second rape, this time involving being roofied by a man at a bar. She uses a variety of motifs in this chapter, starting with describing how the Boston Marathon Bombing and a murder case bookend her rape and later comparing herself to horror movie heroines. She talks of how she could never be a survivor - a final girl - because she is a slut. Though the language is much better than the first part, it still ultimately is a telling of her week-to-week at this point in her life.

One part that I liked most was the moment she wrote about following her rape about frantically looking online and at studies to find if other women experienced the same as her: repeated, though not continuous, rapes. How she felt she needed to find even a single other recorded moment, a narrative, a statistic, anything to show that she was not singular in her trauma. A very powerful moment that helps contextualize her choice to write this memoir.

Part Three is “You” and is told in a very skillfully done second person POV. Rather than just being a gimmick, it is utilized fully in Hood’s own analysis of her decisions and life in the months following her second rape - a “litigation, she calls it. A decently good part, better than Part Two though not by much, it passed by me with little impact. No doubt, it is powerful to read about the struggles of her life in poverty after moving to NYC, her eating disorder, escalating drug and alcohol use, and her eventual turn to sex work, it felt like so many other personal essays and the like that I have read online about other women who find themselves in these situations. Though, I guess that speaks to what Hood describes at the start of Part Four about rape needing to be seen as an epidemic and human rights issue, rather than the anomaly spectacle that it is see as in the current moment during and post #MeToo. No rape is described in this chapter other than callbacks to her previous two. Instead, Hood describes in full force the effects of trauma on her body and mind. She does not stop herself from sharing anything about the hardship of this time in her life, regardless of whether or not it harms the image of her as a victim in other’s eyes.

Part Four, “We”, is back to speaking in the first person. This was the part that I was most dreading, as I cannot stand reading transcriptions of therapy, but it ended up being my favorite by far. Here, Hood recounts her discussions with her therapist about her rapes, including her third rape - a gang-rape that involved her being roofied - her childhood, and her decision to write this book and the struggle that came with it. This part is most directly related to the memoir’s introduction and breaks away from the narrative format. Instead, we get Hood’s descriptions of her feelings regarding all of these things. There is not much dialogue from the therapist in this part, though she is present. Hood describes her finally accepting that her rapes were not her fault and gives a portrayal of what her decade following them has been like. She also discusses at length her knowledge that she won’t be believed by many people. Multiple rapes, and especially gang-rapes she points out, is inherently unbelievable to many people. Beyond this, she knows that her own choice to sleep around, to party and drink too much, to do drugs, all, in the mind of many men, gives them an out to not believe her. She then expands this idea to her rapists and wonders how, if at all, they rationalized it. Reading just the introduction and this part is all I recommend from this book, though the other parts do provide context.

I respect greatly how Hood, as a trans woman, does not shy away from describing herself as a woman, as a victim of misogyny, or anything of that sort. Though the topic of her being a trans woman comes up, of course, it is not considered to affect much by her. She includes it in her final analysis, but points out that it was still misogyny and men’s desire for and power over woman that lead to her rapes and the other forms of violence that she experienced. Also (unrelated), as a Plath hater, she brings her up way too many times. A nitpick, yes, but I felt like mentioning it for my own recording sake.

Though I did not enjoy this memoir all that much, I do understand the praise that it is receiving and I am happy for Hood for it. Maybe at a different time in my life, this memoir would stick to me much better, but at this time it did not.

[Thad Van Haitsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow

[Isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The experience of reading this book and feeling like I, too, have been hollowed out by the weight of the author's experience is compounded by the sheer relief I feel that I am still capable of reading a book and paying attention.

[Autumn Barksdale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trauma Plot was a brutal read. One that I devoured not only because of the subject matter but also Hoods smart, at times extremely devastating interiority, her soothing, very familiar voice (I listened to the audiobook she read) and our similar placement in the world, as survivors, writers etc.

I really enjoyed Hood’s narrative voice, the experimental shifting of points of view to cleverly share with the audience the experience of disassociation. She breaks the 4th wall. She is clearly well read, and really has a talent for her craft. This book was rich with impactful moments, and lines - her time as a poet is clearly displayed here, as much of her prose has a lyric quality.

To call this book fun to read would be a lie - it is violent, harrowing, deeply painful - but also - Hood’s sharp humor, shines through. Despite the subject matter of this book, I enjoyed the time I spent with her. I related deeply to a lot of her experiences - and appreciated her perspectives.

As a trans woman, it was relieving to find a memoir where the authors “transness” isn’t the story. Hood’s reality of womanhood was not surrounded by her transness. Being trans was acknowledged merely as a minor detail, and it was never directly addressed, which was so important to show how little transness has to do with the contents of the book at all - a book about being a woman, and surviving sexual violence. It feels as if it is a betrayal to even mention this in the review but I felt like it needs to be acknowledged as surely this book will join “trans lit cannon” wether the author objects or not.


Bravo.

[John Riggio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Therapist mentioned this when recommending a writing exercise. Bleak, but real and raw. The resilience of trans women is truly astounding.

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how to write a review of this book. Just trust that it's better than whatever I come up with, but also know that it's not an easy read. Hood writes about her rapes in an unflinching, sometimes-detached manner. The book is divided into sections, with Hood identifying as a first-person subject in some and third-person in others. It's always grim, and the writing is generally reflective and often stunning. This is a personal memoir as well as a look into #MeToo culture as a whole, including its pitfalls, particularly those relating to trans visibility and a focus on "innocent" victims.

Hood is essentially performing literary analysis on her own diaries, which is a first for me. I admire the distance it gave to some of the passages - it feels speculative at times. Hood is also clearly still working through her trauma, and she does not at all claim to have a cure or even advice. She shares her progress and leaves it at that.

In the beginning, Hood writes a bit about feeling that "A Little Life" is unfairly maligned as trauma porn due to the (to many) excessive traumatic experiences one of the characters endures. Hood points out that some lives are filled with abuse and asks why those stories shouldn't be shared. She then goes on to share one.

I think it's important. If you are able to read it, I think you should.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book I kept thinking of as I read this was A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride. That was fiction, and this emphatically is not, and the prose of this isn't nearly so fractured as in McBride's novel, but there's a similar sense of sharing textual space of someone who is carrying horrific trauma as a result of rape and abuse. One big difference is that Hood is writing her way out of her despair. The book ends on a note of joy and hope, of the possibilities and the pleasures of being alive in the world.

[amitai bernstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss girl can write .

[Addie Lovell]

This was like really amazing in so many ways. Moved me so much. so much good and interesting criticism in here. Really cathartic and also fucking brutal

[Grace Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

poetic, tragic, hopeful

[Jean J · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it might be my fault that I went into this assuming the narrative stuff in the first few pages I read while browsing at the library would give way to something closer to essayistic literary criticism than a novelistic memoir. The book jacket promises a book about interrogating archetypes, and I guess I took that too literally.

[Ivy Rockmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jamie Hood may well be the great American memoirist. Though, to categorize this masterpiece as a work of genre-memoir might take away from the beauty of its experimentation, its self-referential understanding of what it means to write about trauma while still be taken seriously as a work of literature, especially in a publishing landscape that tokenizes trans authors while profiting off our trauma. I have so much to say about this book, but mainly I sincerely hope that you buy it so that Hood has the ability to write more books. She has novels in her, waiting.

There is something so terrifying yet true about understanding your life in terms of narrative, and Hood is one of the few figures I’ve ever encountered who interrogates her selfhood and constructor of her own narrative as she simultaneously serves as a sort of critic; she knows what she’s doing, and you, the reader, are made sure of it. The structure is masterful, and the experience of reading is perplexing, harrowing, and sickening. This is a proud and essential addition to the canon of (trans) women’s life writing.

This book also changed my philosophies toward sex, especially the failures of narrative in light of Me Too, mainly: the notion of pure victims, impure assaulters; the idea of rape being individual when it is systemic; rape as something held up by structure or “endemic to life under patriarchy”; a reframe, that is rape is about power, yes, but still about sex, in that it reframes the victim’s understanding of their selfhood; desire as a means to reclaim subjectivity; the notion of the trans subject; and how to make a life. The writing is also fucking amazing.

“If you produce this impossible ontology (the Perfect Victim) so no one’s able to embody it, you create the conditions for systemic incredulity, the fiction that sexual violence doesn’t happen, or isn’t serious, that it isn’t endemic to life under patriarchy.”

“In her diaries, the French writer Annie Ernaux remarks that “desire, writing, and death have always been interchangeable” for her, that, in these happenings, the self is ejected from time, evacuated of it, that there, time dissolves.”

“Annie Dillard, who reminds us one plight of the writing life is knowing “your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world, that no one except you cares whether you do it well, or ever.”

“Always I was baffled by the recursivity of this violence. I became convinced it was something to do with a metaphysical fact in me: that I was immanently rapeable. With distance I’m better able to see the system at work—rape culture in the long view, I guess. I’m lately thinking how invisible trans women have been made in the conversation, despite our being at an escalated risk for sexual and other forms of intimate violence. But no one fucking cares, and this is partly because transmisogyny makes us, in a discursive sense, unrapeable. The status quo’s sexual prohibition against trans women means we’re not even understood as fuckable, let alone lovable, and if we can’t be fucked, how could we possibly have been raped? This is the “logic” undergirding the Trumpist disavowal: “She’s not my type.” This banishment of trans women from the horizon of acceptable desire also entails that any sexual experience we do have we must have been desperate for, experiences we not only begged to have, but were granted as an act of fathomless generosity. Men I used to sleep with would talk about me being “lucky” to have gotten it from them, which is a rationale at the heart of all rape culture: that women must be grateful for whatever cock we get. Like cock is so fucking great. Sometimes, sure, but the bedrock of transmisogyny is the claim that we aren’t reliable narrators of our own existence, that we’re sexually confused at best, and insidious fabricators at worst. Ontological deceivers. Phobic presumptions about the inauthenticity of our identity become mapped onto everything we say and do in the world—this notion that we aren’t who we say we are renders all aspects of our self-accounting dishonest. Add to this the current sex panic, which paints anyone who’s not cis and straight as a moral pollutant, a trickster, a violator. Trans women are receptacles for so much of our culture’s erotic terror. We’re fundamentally monstrous: body horror made manifest; cobbled-together doll parts. It’s total dehumanization. And when you dehumanize the other, you can justify any violence you enact against them.”

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anything I write about this book will feel reductive. Still, this is one of the most profound reading experiences I've had. Entering the pantheon of books about rape that manage to defy simple classification or trite self-help. Jamie Hood's writing here rebels (implicitly and explicitly) against the so-called limitations of confessional writing. To hear your own worst thoughts and fears repeated back to you is so strange and so cathartic. Indelible book. Incredible.

[Ava Burzycki · Rating 5 out of 5]

my most anticipated read of the year, and now maybe my favorite book of all time. Hood is so creative in breaking down form, and the formatting of this memoir felt so fresh and true to Hood’s background (& literary influences!) I am failing over and over again to describe how I feel about the story told because I felt so much!!!!!!!

[Chloe Duckworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I see so much of myself in Jaime that it feels too intimate to leave a proper review.

“You’re not supposed to confess there’s a limit to what a person can recover from”

[Regan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jamie Hood is outstanding and very brilliant, glad I read this and I love her substack & criticism too—but yes read the label, this is a traumatic book

[Joshua Rosati · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really not sure what to say aside from HEAVY!

[DemitraxLune · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm nearly 40 and I've only just started living. I grieve this. I do. I'll never get those years back. I want to be okay with this. But it's hard not to dream of other lives, and maybe that dream is the current that carries me to writing. Perhaps it was my imaginative escapism that animated the desire for creation.

[Misha · Rating 4 out of 5]

(rounded up from 3.5)

This was an important read but I think the blurb does it a disservice by promoting it as a book that explores archetypes about rape stories and survival but this is more of a novelization of a memoir. As it stands, I can't say I enjoyed this book (nor should it be "enjoyed", per se) but I did find the last section to be the most interesting as Jamie excavated her own trauma with a therapist and shares her thought process.