The Beauty In Breaking by Michelle Harper

“This devastation is a crossroads with a choice; to remain in the ashes or to forge ahead unburdened. Here is the chance to mold into a new nakedness, strengthened by the legacy of resilience to climb over the debris toward a different life.”

Michelle Harper's The Beauty in Breaking is an honest depiction of the obstacles Michelle has encountered as a Female Person of Color working as an Emergency Room Physician. This unique memoir has presented the reader with some fascinating cases she has witnessed in the ER, along with the beautiful respite she has found in her spiritual practices.

Medical Memoirs are like brownies, I can never get enough even when I'm not sure if I can stomach the entirety of what is offered up. I first discovered my love for medical memoirs after reading Paul Kalanthini's When Breath Becomes Air. Much like When Breath Becomes air, this book was well balanced in both fascinating medical details and the spiritual practices and groundings that the physician's participate in to heal from the hard work of being a healer.

The beginning of Harper's story detailed growing up in a very unstable home with lots of discord. The second half of this novel detailed her medical background and the different hospitals she has been a part of. I imagine writing a memoir as a physician would be very difficult. How do you include enough detail to keep all of the medical-curious readers satiated, while not including so many over the top details that the message of the memoir is drowned out by the trauma? Harper not only struck this balance, the strength of her book is the way she brought the reader with her in such am effortless way. She showed us the harrowing and heartbreaking cases but she also took us through to the other side of healing, peace and the difficult dance of letting go, while still honoring the experience for what it brought up inside of us.

I couldn't put Beauty in the breaking down. I read it in two sittings and both times I lost all sense of where I was in space and time. The writing was beautiful and the messages the book had to offer have sat heavy on my mind for weeks now. I love a short book that packs a punch! All the better if it is a non-fiction memoir!

🏅🏅🏅🏅 4/5 Stars