My Dreadful Body by Djabbarova is a relatively short book with under 200 pages. You can probably finish it in one sitting. And yet, it kind of wrecks you in the best way just like a 500 pages of book.

The whole thing is built around eleven chapters, one for each body part. Djabbarova basically takes you on a tour of her own body, like she’s showing you around her childhood home. She points out what hurts, what carries memories, what got shaped by people who weren’t her. Along the way, she talks about beauty standards, what it’s like growing up a woman in Azerbaijan, and the daily grind of chronic pain and disability.

Her illness ends up meaning a lot more than just illness. The more muscles it takes over, the less freedom she has. Her body keeps her tied to her culture’s rules and at the same time lets her off the hook for expectations she can’t meet anymore. Wild to sit with.

She writes about her family, her country, and herself with so much love. The little personal stories that invited me to keep nodding the whole way through, even though my life looks nothing like hers. That’s the magic of a good writer, she can make her very specific story feel like it’s about you, too.

This book is a love letter and a funeral all at once. How do you grieve something that was never really yours to begin with? Djabbarova keeps poking at the question from every angle her tired body will let her. Unconsciously, we also wandering the answer along with her in each paragraph.

During my reading time, I had my commonplace notebook in my hands and wrote down my own thoughts about my body, the rules I grew up with, the little ways I’ve pushed back over the years. I have a feeling a lot of readers will get that same itch. This book is like a prompt to reflect on our body.

If I have to say what is my impression of My Dreadful Body in short, then I’d say that it’s been forever since I read something this short that still hit this hard: touching, thoughtful, and deep, all in one slim book.

Five out of five stars, no hesitation. Take your time with it. Keep a notebook nearby. You’ll want (need!) one.

My Favorite Bits

• My hands knew how to wash and cook, but they liked writing more than anything. They always liked writing, which is why even in my childhood I had notebooks where I wrote stories and thought up characters, even attempting to draw them. Writing gave me conversation partners I could talk with at any time, writing didn’t depend on anyone but me, and writing was always with me, like an invisible amulet. If someone wronged and upset me, I’d wait until evening to open my notebook and write a story where something bad happens to a bad character and something good happens to the good character. Only later did it become obvious to me that this is not always how things are: bad things happen to good characters, too, and life adds all kinds of people into its soup, tossing in spices without asking who likes what.

• I felt as if books were acceptable djinns: they took over the consciousness and twisted time into a slender straw, telling stories about people who resembled me a lot or not at all, telling of love and devotion, of death and dying. They were portable sanctuaries that conversed with me.

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Author: Egana Djabbarova
Publication date: 1 January 2023
Number of pages: 144 pages

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