A review by afi_whatafireads
Shame by Annie Ernaux by Annie Ernaux

dark emotional fast-paced

4.5

When a book started with the opening line :

"My father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June, in the early afternoon."


You're bound to feel... things. And I felt a lot with this book, to a point that made me stared at the ceiling for a good 10 minutes, dawned to me how eerily real and close I can understand to what the narrator is feeling. That's what made me realize, Ernaux is one goddamn of an author. My 3rd work from her, and she never cease to amaze me with how she can capture the readers with her words and the stories that she puts out.


"“The worst thing about shame is that we imagine we are the only ones to experience it.”


The shame that the narrator encountered, following through her capturing moments in her childhood and how in withstanding and trying to conform to society's standards at the time, the feelings of shame - of not having the same 'standards' or even seen as something 'different'. Shame in knowing the fact that the feelings comes from a dark place within, and tangled by the complexity of the human mind, it became a cobweb of emotions that will shape a person to become somebody else entirely. Who do we blame from where the feelings of shame stems from? Do we blame society for making known the word and the feeling? or do we blame ourselves as we fail to deflect what people perceive of us?

These are the questions that ran through my head when reading this book. And the fact its an autofiction makes it more raw. Its raw to a point that I felt myself stripped from the mask that I've hid behind in the face of society - and what Ernaux had done in the span of less than 200 pages was to me, incredible. There's a feeling of resentment but also in the way that as readers, we can feel what the narrator felt to our very bones. And that feeling is not something that is easy to translate outside of paper.


“This can be said about shame: those who experience it feel that anything can happen to them, that the shame will never cease and that it will only be followed by more shame.”


This book means something to me. I feel that it really highlighted some of the complex that I felt growing up - the same as the narrator did. Since the book is written in excerpts from the narrator's memory, this book felt more personal to a point. Its a daunting feeling.

Would recommend but do come in expecting nothing.

Personal Ratings: 4.5🌟