Book Log #5 - Somebody's Daughter: A Memoir by Ashley C. Ford

Review: 4/5 stars

Ashley C. Ford’s memoir is a beautiful story in vulnerability, identity, and femininity. As the title suggests, Somebody’s Daughter revolves around her identity as a part of her family unit. This is something that I’ve thought a lot about in my own life - but Ford tells us that where we go is more important than where we come from. Her reflections on her relationship with her body and her journeys in love was refreshing and also enlightening for its self-awareness and honesty. To open up so candidly in her book to the world is truly admirable.

Ford writes about her reconciliation with her father (she first writes about it in her essay, The Sins of My Father, in 2009). It was not a reconciliation in the typical sense, however, she explains that it ran far deeper than that. In her book, she recounts the visit she made to her father in prison when she was 23 years old. This was the first time she had seen him in years, and this account was touching and disarmingly honest - she explains how she came to see her father in her own way, and not for what he was imprisoned for.

Forgiveness conveys strongly throughout her work - the book also talks about her relationship with her mother, and how their relationship had shaped her to become the woman she is today. Ford has stated that it was important that no one was written to be the villain in her story, rather that it would be her own narrative that takes centre stage.

Engaging with this narrative for me has gone beyond just the book - watching her interviews, reading her essays has been a source of absolute comfort to me in the time since I've finished Somebody's Daughter. One key moment was in Ford's interview with Trevor Noah; she said that 'shame thrives when it's alone', which is why isolation often occurs on the basis of shame. She reminds that there is no human emotion that another person is not capable of feeling too - something that is important for us all to remember!

More of her journalistic essays - here.

Seeing my body with fresh eyes.

Date read: 03/22

Some quotes I like:

"I was not always as afraid of the world or as nervous about the other people living in it alongside me, or what they might do to me. When my life was new, I understood in my bones how little it mattered what anybody else was doing, or what they thought about what I was doing. I believed my bones then."