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White Magic
White Magic | Elissa Washuta
7 posts | 11 read | 4 to read
Throughout her life, Elissa Washuta has been surrounded by cheap facsimiles of Native spiritual tools and occult trends, "starter witch kits" of sage, rose quartz, and tarot cards packaged together in paper and plastic. Following a decade of abuse, addiction, PTSD, and heavy-duty drug treatment for a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, she felt drawn to the real spirits and powers her dispossessed and discarded ancestors knew, while she undertook necessary work to find love and meaning. In this collection of intertwined essays, she writes about land, heartbreak, and colonization, about life without the escape hatch of intoxication, and about how she became a powerful witch. She interlaces stories from her forebears with cultural artifacts from her own life--Twin Peaks, the Oregon Trail II video game, a Claymation Satan, a YouTube video of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham--to explore questions of cultural inheritance and the particular danger, as a Native woman, of relaxing into romantic love under colonial rule.
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review
peanutnine
White Magic | Elissa Washuta
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Mehso-so

Elissa intertwines her experience as a Native woman with cultural aspects of her life and examines occult trends compared to her observations of the power of magic. She goes into detail about her past abusive relationships, PTSD, and alcoholism & her search for love and meaning in her life.
Mixed feelings about this one. It's a powerful account of trauma and the effects of colonialism but sometimes I had a hard time following the narrative.

46 likes5 comments
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Sydneypaige
White Magic | Elissa Washuta
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This book is overwhelming about a man named Carl and that‘s not what I intended to read about. I can understand his significance to the author and how he may represent lessons she works through but it didn‘t work. Much of this is reflective and not critical, and I think my expectations based on the title were off. I was hoping for a critique rather than a memoir - which is definitely a reader error.

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Ellohcin
White Magic | Elissa Washuta
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Thndrstd
White Magic | Elissa Washuta
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Pickpick

Pretty much every trigger warning possible. A strong collection of essays about being Native American, cultural appropriation, love, sex, colonization, and being in the contemporary world. Often difficult to read for its subject matter and challenging. Washuta is a brave writer who tears at her own wounds to find the truth within them.

slategreyskies Thanks for the trigger warning. I think I‘ll pass on this one. 2y
32 likes1 stack add1 comment
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Victoriahoperose
White Magic | Elissa Washuta
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Panpan

This was so slow for me. I could not stay focused on this one and it was just super boring for me. I thought it sounded like an interesting concept, but it just wasn‘t for me.

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Larkken
White Magic | Elissa Washuta
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Mehso-so

Final July #bookspinbingo board! It‘s like I‘m trying to avoid getting bingos 🤫! Oh well, maybe next month.
This collection of autobiographical essays were hit or miss for me. There was a lot about abusive relationships, and outright abuse, and some essays were more effective regarding this than others - the repetition made the theme overall less powerful, somehow? However, the writing was excellent and the colonialization themes fascinating.

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Larkken
White Magic | Elissa Washuta
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July #BookSpinBingo, now with more free spaces! Ha. Tagged book just came in from the library 📚

TheAromaofBooks Yay!!! 3y
Larkken Bookspin: 20; doublespin: 1 3y
12 likes2 comments