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Showing posts from October, 2019

The Most Valuable Lessons I Learnt From My Life

My Shovel follows the experiences of Karen Sue, a retired substance abuse counsellor. She worked for mental health facilities and assisted male prisoners with health and substance abuse during incarceration. This all makes sense once you realize the Karen Sue had been neck deep in substance abuse herself. The fighting spirit As you read My Shovel , you quickly pick up on the consequences of leaving someone to their own devices after they have been through a traumatic incident. Karen Sue had been raped in college, which was the incident that made her hit rock bottom. For a lot of women, speaking out about their rape is not an option because they are often persecuted and blamed for it. Not only is it one of the most traumatic experiences a person can go through, but it is also made inaccessible for a lot of women to so much as talk about it. Had I remembered what my mother taught me perhaps I wouldn't have turned to alcohol. I have often wished that I had reported this rape

A Trek That Changed My Life

It’s not an unknown fact that women do not have it easy. A lot of women are more petite than muscular, a lot of women have lighter bones, and some women simply do not have the strength nor the will to fight or be violent. This is an unfortunate case because there have been many women who were ill-equipped to fight back when they needed to. A lot of women freeze up as well when they are assaulted. The main story This is the story of one such woman, born in Lincoln, Nebraska, who was young and petite. Her book, My Shovel , recounts her life story from when she was very little, and how her mother had taught her the importance of fighting back. Right from the prologue we get a gist of the message Karen Sue is trying to get across. She says she had forgotten the importance of needing to fight back as she grew older, which is a sentiment a lot of women can resonate with. Recollecting the past Karen Sue recounts her life story and through the narrative talks about the subtle ways sh

Why You Should Pick Up Karen Sue’s First Novel Today

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Life is difficult for almost anyone who exists. A lot of times things that are not under people’s control tend to determine where their life will end up and the kind of person they become. Because of this, a lot of people have decided that suffering is necessary for growth, which could not be further from the truth. Karen Sue’s “My Shovel,” is a memoir of her experiences as a woman, where she demonstrates how her autonomy as a person was taken away from forcefully and how it made her spiral. This book is for anyone who is going through the hardships of life and feel as though they are losing control of their self. What is it about? Karen Sue writes about the one experience she had in college that completely ruined her life, where she was date raped by a man at a bar and resorted to alcoholism to cope with the trauma. She talks about all the relationships she had ruined and how she constantly sabotaged her life. it was only after 24 years that she had started her healin