Insightful and heartbreaking this was a book that I devoured slowly and with a heavy heart.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for a review.

This Ragged Grace by Octavia is a moving, troubled and troubling memoir about addiction and loss. Not an easy read for many reasons but worthwhile.

I received an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. DNF at 70%.
Couldn't force myself to finish this one, just didn't grab me and was struggling to get through each page.
Well written, but a very introspective and personal experience and very slow at times. I am sure I am not the right audience for this.

A beautifully written moving memoir, one of which I really enjoyed though the subject matter could be hard at times, a real gem even though some parts were hard to read.

I was aware of Octavia because I’m a big fan of her podcast, Literary Friction, and so I knew going in that this would be a well written memoir, and I was right about that.

This was an interesting read and I found the descriptions of the different places Octavia visits during her recovery very compelling. 4* rather than 5* simply because this was a very ‘quiet,’ read, so while I enjoyed it, I wasn’t ever desperate to pick it up to find out what happened next.

This is a very moving memoir, and so heart breaking to watch Bright regain her clarity and fullness of life as her father loses his. Would highly recommend, the writing is excellent and Bright tells an engrossing story of her journey as it crosses and moves away from her fathers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Canongate for the opportunity to read this memoir. Wow, this was a deeply intimate and rich portrait of grief and loss, addiction, and complex family relationships. The writing style is unique and engaging, drawing the reader in as if we are connecting with Bright personally. For anyone who has struggled with addiction firsthand or watched someone they love struggle with it, this is an emotional read, but one you won't soon forget.

This book is a story of journeys. The author's physical journeys to various locations and their journey of self-discovery, healing, and acceptance. It is a moving and enlightening work

"This Ragged Grace" is a beautiful - and beautifully written - memoir about addiction, love, loss and trying to figure out who you are when you can't dull yourself with narcotics. I've long loved Octavia Bright's NTS show about books and always found her to be thoughtful and insightful, so it's not surprise that I loved this too. "This Ragged Grace" will undoubtedly be compared to other books like Olivia Laing's "The Lonely City" and Amy Liptrot's "The Outrun," both of which feature female narrators trying to run away from their selves and their addictions and finding themselves in the process.

I especially loved her discussing her love of dancing, of losing yourself in movement, of the unselfconscious freedom you can find when you throw yourself physically into things. The sections where she discusses her father's slow descent into alzheimer's grabs your heart and doesn't let it go. She so beautifully describes what it's like to mourn someone who is still alive, who occasionally shows flashes of the person they used to be while their sense of self is crumbling away, like a cliff face being eroded by sea water.

This is one of my top books of 2023, and one I will be thinking about for a long time. Thank you Netgalley and Cannongate books for this gift.

Unfortunately I was unable to read this book as its vanished from my kindle and no option to download it again. I was really looking forward to reading thjs!

A luminous memoir that doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable feelings brought up by recovery, or the sense that it isn't a linear path. A few years into Octavia's recovery from substance abuse, her father starts to lose his memory and she has to adapt to cope with the changes in him. An honest, emotionally rigorous book about being alive.

Love love love this! Beautifully written, super heartfelt and authentic - would recommend this to a variety of people

Not an easy read - and why would it be - but a rewarding one. Two separate lives with two separate very different challenges, both handled sensitively and frankly.

Octavia Bright was in trouble. Her drinking was out of control. She needed up to face her alcoholism before it was too late.

This memoir takes us on Olivia's journey to face up to her addiction and learning to live in a world as she recovers. But, as Olivia manages to face her demons, her father starts to slip away into dementia.

This is a moving and reflective book about addiction and recovery and facing up to our own frailty and that of others.

Octavia Bright, This Ragged Grace: I’ve been listening to Bright’s Literary Friction podcast for quite a few years, and while I think she’s a great host, I’ll admit I’ve always found her broad and generous knowledge of vast swathes of literature and theory to be a little bit intimidating. So, I was pleased by just how enjoyable an experience her memoir of addiction and grief was for me. Literature and language are covered, but delicately and with constant reference back to the situation she was in as a recovering alcoholic with a terminally ill father. This Ragged Grace is heartbreaking, but infinitely readable.

I'm a big fan of the Literary Friction podcast, so co-host Octavia Bright's memoir This Ragged Grace has been top of my list to read since it was first announced. Canongate were also kind enough to send me a link to the ebook – the dream! Brilliantly written and incredibly candid, This Ragged Grace explores seven-ish years of Octavia's life – juxtaposing her recovery from alcoholism with her father's slowly worsening Alzheimer's. My favourite parts were the sections set in different parts of the world, Stromboli and New York and Margate, and how a person's experience can be affected by the setting in which they find themselves. It's an emotional and very truthful read, that both creates a digestible narrative and resists the fact that life can ever be easily parcelled up in this way. It's one I would like to reread, maybe more slowly, but I'd definitely recommend.

Heartbreaking, honest and well written. It's not an easy read as it's like being punched at time but it's a testimony of how you can face a very harsh life and win.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

This is one of the truest books I have ever read about addiction. Bright is young when she finds herself facing the unpalatable truth that she is an alcoholic. This is a memoir of recovery over many years. It has a beautiful and tragic counterpoint in that as she begins to put her life together, her father's life begins to fall apart. Dementia is unravelling him as fast as she is discovering who she really is.

There are so many things to say about this book. It's like a patchwork quilt in many respects. Forays into art and academia, memory and desire, addiction and recovery. It's all threaded through with consummate skill and real beauty.

This Ragged Grace by Octavia Bright is a powerful memoir that is unafraid to examine the darkness of addiction and the desolation of loss while still having a hopeful and empowering tone. Though short, it is impactful and memorable and as I read I found myself rereading and highlighting passages that particularly spoke to me. such as " ..this idea that as we evolve, somewhere deep within us remains a skeletal trace of what came before that builds up in layers, a sediment of the self. But the point is that it's crucial to our continued survival to let some things sink to the bottom, recede until they are obsolete. " or " If addiction is rooted in the will to forget, recovery is an act of remembering - a slow reconnection with the parts of yourself that slipped out of reach while you hungered for escape. "
This latter quote is particularly poignant given that alongside her own story of recovery the author is describing the slow but irreversible decline of her father as his Alzheimer's disease progresses. Over the course of seven chapters we see Olivia rediscover herself, and begin to thrive in her new life while simultaneously trying to help her parents come to terms with the inevitable. As the Covid-19 pandemic erupts, Olivia and her family face further challenges , and her descriptions of socially distant visits to her father who by then was living in a care home bring back just how much so many people suffered while the world tried to figure out an answer to the awful situation.
I would highly recommend this memoir to anyone who enjoys thoughtful and well written prose, as well as those who appreciate bravery and honesty in their storytelling,
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed This Ragged Grace. I’m not familiar with the author but felt compelled to read this memoir when I read the blurb. I haven’t had alcohol addiction but went through a phase of drinking excessively when a relationship ended badly so I could relate to the author’s experience. My gran had Alzheimer’s so I could really relate to the author’s experiences with her father. This is a powerful memoir, raw, visceral, and heart-breaking at times. I feel privileged the author chose to share her story with me.