Dyscalculia, Camonghne Felix
Dyscalculia, Camonghne Felix
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Dyscalculia
A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation

Author: Camonghne Felix

Narrator: Camonghne Felix

Unabridged: 2 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/14/2023

Synopsis

“Powerful . . . a poetic meditation on how love or attempts at loving can drive us to madness.”—The Boston Globe
 
“We learn about the cracks in Felix’s upbringing, the hurt from the breakup itself, and a pain that spans a lifetime, all through a sharp millennial voice.”—Time

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, Chicago Public Library, Electric Lit

When Camonghne Felix goes through a monumental breakup, culminating in a hospital stay, everything—from her early childhood trauma and mental health to her relationship with mathematics—shows up in the tapestry of her healing. In this exquisite and raw reflection, Felix repossesses herself through the exploration of history she’d left behind, using her childhood “dyscalculia”—a disorder that makes it difficult to learn math—as a metaphor for the consequences of her miscalculations in love. Through reckoning with this breakup and other adult gambles in intimacy, Felix asks the question: Who gets to assert their right to pain?
 
Dyscalculia negotiates the misalignments of perception and reality, love and harm, and the politics of heartbreak, both romantic and familial.

About Camonghne Felix

Camonghne Felix is a poet, political strategist, media junkie, and cultural worker. She received an MA in Arts Politics from NYU, an MFA from Bard College, and has received Fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo and Poets House. The 2012 Pushcart Prize nominee is the author of the chapbook Yolk, and was recently listed by Black Youth Project as a “Black Girl From the Future You Should Know.” Her first full-length collection of poems, Build Yourself a Boat, was a 2017 University of Wisconsin Press Brittingham & Pollak Prize finalist, and a 2017 Fordham University Poets Out Loud semi-finalist.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Traci on February 02, 2023

This is a unique little book that moves between humor and despair with easy. Felix shares a lot with the reader in little fits and spurts. I couldn’t always keep up but I appreciated it. Update: I reread this on the page instead of the audiobook (my first read) and liked it more. The book is written......more

Goodreads review by Shannon on February 13, 2023

A short but extremely powerful memoir about one woman's lifelong struggle getting a bipolar II diagnosis, her bouts of depression and suicide attempts and hospitalization. This book tackles heavy topics and should be read with care. That said I was fascinated to learn how often ADHD and what’s terme......more

Goodreads review by myo on June 16, 2024

idc about math but i read this because the cover is pretty and i needed a poetry book for my library summer reading program bingo sheet. there was some good poetry but for me i just really love poetry when i can relate and i could relate to some part but not a lot. i do think it’s a cool concept and......more

Goodreads review by The on March 19, 2023

This book ripped my head off, chewed it up, and spat it out to have a convo with my bones Hamlet style and you know what? I loved it. Felix is an excellent, smart, eloquent writer (feel like my vocabulary improved just by reading this) where each sentence was like a feast. I really admire how she co......more

Goodreads review by Lila on June 20, 2023

Honestly I kind of had no clue what was going on after the like first third of this book. I thought it was going to be more like a cohesive story but it was just like a bunch of poems and was low key confusing.......more

Quotes

“Powerful . . . a poetic meditation on how love or attempts at loving can drive us to madness— [Dyscalculia is] the perfect antidote to the pressure, societal or personal, to perform love or even lust . . . Felix’s voice is confident and uninhibited, so direct and full of candor . . . Felix captures the essence of emotional unraveling with raw, heartbreaking beauty . . . Dyscalculia describes emotional miscalculation with precision.”—Boston Globe

“Stunning . . . gorgeous.”—BookRiot, 10 Riveting New Nonfiction Books to Read in February 2023

“We learn about the cracks in Felix’s upbringing, the hurt from the breakup itself, and a pain that spans a lifetime, all through a sharp millennial voice.”—TIME, Here Are the 12 New Books You Should Read in February

“[An] extraordinary volume reckoning with intimacy, healing, perception, love and loss.”—Ms. Magazine, Most Anticipated Feminist Reads of 2023

“If you’re into poetic, rigorous personal narratives (think Elissa Washuta and Ocean Vuong), you’ll want this one on your list.”—Literary Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2023

“Enchanting . . . Leaping seamlessly between the abstraction of formulas and the honest, verbose mess of a break-up, Dyscalculia pushes the metaphor of loss as a math problem in imaginative new directions.”—Bustle, The Most Anticipated Books of 2023

“I’m not sure I’ve ever read something that’s so ferocious and measured as Dyscalculia.”—Purse Book

“Dyscalculia is a frank exploration of pleasure, heartbreak, and reclamation. It makes a case for softness, for lostness, for black girlhood, that rejects containment and asks instead for care.”—Raven Leilani, author of Luster

“Dyscalculia took my breath, grabbed my heart, and made me see. It brought me back to every heartbreak I’ve ever endured, and I marveled at Camonghne Felix’s deep knowing and even deeper articulation of the pain of loss . . . This book is a gift and a miracle.”—Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

“I am deeply shaken by the profound singularity of Dyscalculia. Felix manages to cast, and really conjure, a new portal into the agony of miscalculating love and the pain one can experience in loving relationships.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy

“Devoured it in one sitting–[I was] riveted, propelled, rearranged.”—Leslie Jamison

“Felix’s narrative is as much about the wounds and scars of what it means to love as it is about self-preservation as a political act for Black women.”—Public Books

“Visceral and radiant, this soul-searching self-interrogation resonates.”—Publishers Weekly

“A wildly smart, singular redemption story that is greater than the sum of its parts.”—Kirkus Reviews

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