My Body Is a Book of Rules

June 30, 2014
Washuta, a Seattle writer and member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, is a survivor and cautionary tale. In her harrowing chronicle of bipolar disorder, sexual violence, and struggles with Native identity, she provides a window into this country’s failures when it comes to responding to mental illness, rape and the negative messages women receive about their sexual agency. A friendless student obsessed with holding onto her scholarship at the University of Maryland, Washuta was a virgin when she was raped by an acquaintance. In denial over what happened and without faith in the justice system, she didn’t take legal action. When she finally sought help more than a year later, a woefully inadequate clinic staff misdiagnosed her and prescribed the wrong medications. The literal highs and lows the search for a manageable chemical cocktail are such that she adores a pill that causes massive weight loss even though it makes her feel “at risk for ripping own heart out.” Although Washuta’s story is not an easy read, the fact that Washuta has been able to build a life for herself is a credit to her fierce strength. It’s one that parents, educators, mental health providers, and young women will find immensely valuable.

July 15, 2014
A candid, autobiographical scrapbook from a young womannavigating manic depression.In her forthright debut, Washuta intimately chronicles herongoing struggle with the triple threat of a 2005 sexual assault, bipolardisorder, and the powerful antipsychotic medication prescribed to balance hermind and body ("chemical torture is the trade-off"). In each creativelyimagined chapter, the author delivers explicit insight into her life: abibliography of influential books; reflections on her college years at theUniversity of Maryland, where she conducted sexual habit studies and imbibedvodka-laced "liquid dinners"; the conundrum of obtaining a sexual educationwhile in Catholic school; her hilariously footnoted Match.com online datingprofile; and a harrowing medicine-cabinet glossary of her prescription "bipolarbuffet." Washuta then graphically describes her sexual escapades in Seattle,where she was able to "absorb every one-night stand into my body and keep itthere." Other sections find the author personally identifying with TV's Law & Order, Kurt Cobain and BritneySpears. In alternating chapters, she discusses the internal and external impactsof her Indian heritage as a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe ("It took sometime to get the hang of being simultaneously white and Indian") and how beingraped altered her sense of identity and exacerbated her bouts of bipolardisorder ("Before I knew I was bipolar, and could settle into that, I hadthe rape. It was bloody and violent and it was an injustice of the kind myancestors knew"). In a reliably honest, original and frank fashion,Washuta's ruminations lift the veil of her chronic (and highly medicated) boutsof mental illness to reveal the confused, frenetic and often traumatic realityof living with overwhelming bouts of depression and mania.A fever dream of darkly personal memories and musings fromthe shadowy corners of sexual violence and mental illness.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2014
Washuta lays bare all of her pain and frustration in a staggeringly personal memoir that will leave a deep impression on readers. Primarily chronicling her college years and shortly thereafter, Washuta has a lot to write about. After a childhood that was as close to perfect as any can possibly be, she set off for college, where her struggles to fit in as a scholarship Native American student with Caucasian features forced her to continuously defend her ethnicity, which led to personal questions about identity. Facing a long-overdue bipolar diagnosis and the resultant search for effective medications, Washuta spiraled into a confusing medley of alcohol abuse, depression, and physical illness. Then she suffered a shocking date rape that left nearly overwhelming emotional wounds and sent her into years of pondering the nature of sex and violence. With a style reminiscent of works by Lidia Yuknavitch and Kate Zambreno, Washuta rails against herself, the world, and those who have brought her pain. She searches and yearns for answers in this brutally honest and utterly unforgettable narrative.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)