Books come and go, but there are only few ones that feel so visceral that you still think about them after you have long finished the book. This book is one of them — it’s raw, brutal, unapologetic, educational, forceful and painful at the same time. I felt with every page of this book, and it feels as if the author is forcing you to stay with her with your eyes wide open until the very end of the book while cutting herself open. Transgenerational trauma, depression, microaggressions, housing discrimination — these are only some of the words that the author is refusing to be reduced to. I don’t believe for a moment Alicia Elliott wants your tears, she just wants you to listen and understand.

The Mohawk phrase for depression can be roughly translated to “a mind spread out on the ground.” In her memoir, Canadian Haudenosaunee author Alicia Elliott writes on personal, generational, and colonial trauma, including themes such as mental illness and poverty. I found some parts more engaging that others, but there is no doubt that this memoir is such an important book, showing how the legacy of injustices against Indigenous people is not a thing of the past but ongoing. "Scratch" was a particularly vivid chapter, in which Elliott's childhood battle with head lice becomes a metaphor for the shame of poverty.

Read but was not terribly memorable. I am clearing out the books published in 2020 from my "to review" shelf!

I went into this book blind....I had no idea what it was about. I am so happy that I was approved to read it. It was an eye-opening read for me. I never knew how the natives were treated by the US and I don't ever remember this being taught in school. This is something that everyone should read if you want to understand the history of the native people.

As someone who deals with depression and anxiety, this book helped me in so many ways. I would read this over and over again if I could. The writing is magical, heartbreaking, and beautiful all in one.

I am so grateful to have read such an honest story of the treatment of Native people in the US and beyond. This is a section of history that is so glossed over, and this book was eye-opening and raw. I would recommend it to anyone curious about the trauma/history surrounding the treatment of Native peoples.

This sharp and cutting critique on culture, society, race, poverty, and more has stayed with me since I read it. The author's lived experience is harrowing and humbling, and she draws broad lessons that resonate long after the last page is turned.

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground was an intricately written and thoughtful book of essays/memoir. Oscillating between scholarly reviews of art to beautiful and dark personal memories, this was a captivating portrait of a Canadian Native woman who has been failed by society time and time again—yet who has still risen to write her story.

A wonderful collection of essays that are perfectly suited to prompt thoughtful discussion or introspection. This book would probably work best in paper version if you're a margin note taker!

This book is filled with so many important conversations that I don’t even know where to start with this review. The mix of personal experience and generational histories is really well balanced. Topics touched on include residential schools, internalized racism, generational trauma, etc. Parts I especially loved and thought were craftfully done where the passages about the way health issues among Indigenous peoples are pathologized and written off as genetic while completely ignoring the historical (and present day) effects of genocide and colonialism. The conversation about the inability for society to regard women’s fictionalized creations as separate from their selfhood or personally experience was also really interesting and something I hadn’t thought of before. The threads of truth versus invalidity of experience among marginalized people was woven through all of the topics covered and I think it really did a powerful job of showcasing the dehumanization and erasure of Indigenous experience, especially among Indigenous women. I also thought the part about mental illness were nuanced and honest. I could go on and on... I highly recommend this book!

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground was a fantastic collection of essays on a variety of important topics. Highly recommended.

This is a book that once you start reading, you just want to devour. Alicia Elliott's writing has a way of really drawing you in, demanding your full attention, asking you the hard questions. And the way she weaves in other stories, facts, and her reflections on her own life in every one of these essays is incredible. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground was an emotional journey of reflection, awareness, and teaching. As someone who doesn't read much non-fiction, it usually takes me a while to get through a book under this genre but if I could just focus all my attention on this one book for one day, it would have been completed the day I opened it.

I think there's a lot to say about the ground that the author covers and the stories she shares with us about her own life. It takes vulnerability to do something like this, especially for topics as deeply personal as trauma, disordered eating, etc. And the points the author makes about colonialism, racism, poverty, the way so many of these systemic and societal issues are linked hand-in-hand hits everything right on the nose and makes a considerable impact on the reader, BIPOC or not.

It also serves as a strong reminder of how lacking Indigenous voices still are in mainstream forms of media and when we talk about supporting minorities and historically oppressed groups.

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a book I have and will continue to recommend to other readers. This was a fantastic read.

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a collection of essays written by Alicia Elliott jam-packed with nuanced questions and perspectives.

Alicia Elliott gives us a look into her life growing up as a child of an Indigenous man and a White woman. When I first picked this up, I was expecting to read about a series of events that affected and shaped the person she has become – one full of reflection, insight, and growth. I got exactly that and so much more. The author effortlessly discusses topics such as capitalism, mental health, epigenetics, food security, malnutrition, and sexual assault all set against the backdrop of colonialism. She digs deep into history and present-day events to provide factual context for how much has changed (or hasn’t). I’ve never read a collection of essays before and I was pleasantly surprised by how much of an educational experience it was. I absolutely loved her writing - blunt, unwavering, and empathetic.

What stood out to me was Alicia Elliot’s emphasis of the love that existed in her childhood home despite all of the blatant chaos that had Child Services lingering at their doorsteps like vultures waiting for the opportunity to take them away. She grapples with her mother’s mental illness, one that can never be fully defined by a single term no matter how much medicine tries, and its coexistence with her multiple roles as a wife, mother, sister, and loved one. Despite all that was imperfect about her life, there were moments of happiness and joy that she reminisces on lovingly. This acted as a reminder to me that it isn’t enough to paint our life in a single brush stroke, that within a canvas, there are layers that, when peeled back, uncover hurt intertwined with growth, loneliness with comfort, hate with love.

My favourite essays (though I love all) are:
- Boundaries like Bruises
- On Forbidden Room and Intentional Forgetting
- Crude Collages of My Mother

This is definitely a book that prompts in-depth analysis and makes for a very interesting pick for your next book club discussion.

This was a lovely memoir of a Native woman in Canada. Poetically and beautifully written, I enjoyed the entire book.

I added this book to my "best of 2020" list without hesitation. The author is kind and gentle with her writing, even as she stares unflinchingly into the depths of mental illness. I found it to be very helpful with my own mental health and have already mentioned it specifically to several friends. Highly recommended.

A moving and well written work from a woman who grew up in the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in Ontario. She straddled two worlds; as a child of a Native American father and White mother and moving back and forth between the US and Canada. To me this book was all about being between two worlds...mental illness vs mental health, poverty vs having enough. Her words are almost ghostly in their beauty and brutal honesty as Ms. Elliott chronicles the depression that insinuates itself in her family member's lives. When her father has what surely must be a very painful accident, he is stone-faced on the ride to the hospital. She writes, “Maybe I couldn’t map the pain on his face because he was always in pain.” Devastating.

"This world does not belong to you; you are merely borrowing it from the coming faces."

Alicia Elliott's collection of essays is truly eye-opening into the Indigenous experience in Canada and the US. Equally funny and heartfelt, this book made me realize how our countries' pasts shape our present and how that continues to affect folks every day. I highly recommend this for anyone looking to learn more and to love more.

Not an easy read by any measure. Alicia Elliott uses essays to present her history and thus is able to expand on themes and provide them with extraordinary depth. As she is a superb writer, her scholarship is paramount, her grasp of science and the connections she makes are remarkable. The density of her prose is one of the beauties of this book, her honesty and generosity, additional benefits. But it is the truly eyepopping revelations that make a reader, particularly one from the United States in these days of protest and plague, sit up and take notice, and feel ashamed for not paying closer attention earlier. For instance, I had no idea the extent to which members of Indigenous Tribes suffer in Canada. And the current tribal members undergo the extreme sense of displacement, much as Tommy Orange spelled out in There There. Together, these books give new meaning to the terms "diaspora," "Indigenous," and most particularly, "diversity."

This book is truly a must read for all Canadians (and Americans). While Alicia Elliott's collection of essays are specific to her experiences being Indigenous in Canada, the experiences of the aftereffects of colonization ring true in both Canada and the United States. I found this to be a part memoir with personal and part overview of the Indigenous experience in Canada from a broader scope. I think this blend works well because it includes stats and facts for those who want to know the specifics, and personal stories to show how the stats play out and affect an individual. This part is emotional and raw. This is honestly a fantastic book for anyone who is unfamiliar with the relationship between Canada and the Indigenous and its political and emotional landscape.

I feel like I am the average person who is non-Indigenous, learned a bit about the history at school, and never made the emotional connection until much later. I personally loved that Alicia blended memoir and fact because it really drives home the message on how much Indigenous people still suffer from inequality (to put it very lightly) and trauma. I think this should be required reading, and I'm so glad that it is being published in the US now too.

This was an absolutely stunning collection of essays. I have to say that this is one of my favourite styles of non-fiction, a collection of personal essays that isn't quite a memoir but gives the reader a good look at the author's life and experiences. Elliott does just that in this book.

We get to see a really holistic view of what shaped Elliott's worldview as a child and into young adulthood, and I think the honesty she writes with is inspiring. She explores living with mental illness both personally and in the family, growing up poor, addiction and abuse, both physical and sexual. These are things that many of us can relate to, and her writing makes it so personal that we feel like we are living with her growing up.

There is one chapter in particular where Elliott invites us to examine the ways in which we are harmed or are being harmful in our own lives. This is an extraordinarily powerful practice that overwhelmed me with emotion, and I recommend this book to anyone if only for that chapter (but the rest of the book as well!).