Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation

by Camonghne Felix

“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 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 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.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Poetry, Audiobook, Mental Health, Romance, Queer

221 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 14, 2023

About the author

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. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the author of the chapbook Yolk and was listed by Black Youth Project as a “Black Girl from the Future You Should Know.”

Reviews

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 in a unique form and so the audio doesn't always capture that style.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hate rating books like this because it feels so wrong to rate someone’s life experience, but this was beautifully written and you could feel the pain through every trauma experienced. I do recommend this book, but proceed with caution and check trigger warnings.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 termed “dyscalculia” get mistaken or are early presentations for people with bipolar II.

I especially felt for Camonghne’s mother who had to live with knowing her daughter’s life would be a hard one and having little she could do about it.

One of the best books about mental health and trauma I've ever read and one I can’t recommend enough. Great on audio read by the author too.

Much thanks to @prhaudio for a complimentary audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

⚠️CW: suicide attempts, self-harm, abortion (among others)

[myo ⋆｡˚ ❀ * · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 if i liked math a bit more i would’ve loved it

[The Lazy Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 could turn her pain into something so beautiful, angry, and funny; I think you have to be in a really healthy place to be able to talk about life experiences like hers in such a mature way. It reminded me a bit of Jamaica Kincaid's writing, like it just nailed emotions without any bullshit. I really recommend the audiobook, it's narrated by the author and I really enjoyed the performance. So good, no notes! Content warnings for sexaul assault, suicidal ideation, self harm.

[Lila Reilly · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a super fast read . However it was disappointing and confusing. I was expecting more about her experience with dyscalculia. I also didn’t understand what was going on a lot of the time

[Missy · Rating 2 out of 5]

i have to read a good book soon or i may never read again

[Claire · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was… not good. Felix has a unique perspective and voice, and it’s clear she feels deeply. However, her memoir was overwrought to the point of being unreadable. More time was spent on tortured and largely meaningless math analogies than on giving the reader even a superficial understanding of Felix’s life. Without a sense of Felix beyond the parade-of-horribles style catalogue of her various traumas, her memoir reads less like a poignant account of being young and mentally ill and more like a selfish middle schooler’s diary about her asshole crush. At least it was short.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dyscalculia is finally getting the attention it deserves as the lesser-known sibling condition to dyslexia. I was intrigued by the title of Camonghne Felix’s book, its tantalizing promise to connect dyscalculia to Felix’s tribulations with romance. Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation does all of this, though with less focus on math skills than I hoped. Thank you to NetGalley and publisher One World for the eARC!

Felix experiences trauma at a young age when her cousin molests her. She recounts in stark terms how the aftermath of this trauma was also traumatic, and as a result, something in her brain changed and she started to struggle with math. Though various doctor’s visits netted pronouncements of ADHD, etc.—with one doctor venturing to suggest bipolar disorder, much to her mother’s dismay—medication regimes didn’t seem to help much, and no one, from Felix’s telling, was all that interested in actually getting to the root of the issue. So Felix grew up, drifted, got into a bad romantic relationship, and here we are. We relive the relationship with her, the break up, the depression, the self-harm and suicide attempt. The psychological evaluations. The cycle.

I really enjoyed the style in which this book is written, which surprised me. Each page is short, a paragraph or two. Felix leans on her experience as a poet to conjure up careful descriptions of scenes and action. The chapters here aren’t so much sustained stories as they are lengthy series of missives, back and forth, from different elements of her psyche. They remind me a lot of the poetry of amanda lovelace!

I went into this knowing little about the actual content of the book and expecting there to be more discussion of dyscalculia. In that respect, my hopes were dashed. But that isn’t the book’s fault, just a miscalculation on my part (see what I did there). I mention it only to help others who might have formed the same impression. Don’t get me wrong: the dyscalculia talk is definitely there, but it is a part of the larger discourse Felix engages in over these ideas about being broken and whether or not she is fixable.

Ultimately, Dyscalculia is about how pain and pleasure are too often connected. How what’s bad for you can feel good, and what’s good for can feel bad. How the people in your life who hurt you can sometimes be the only ones you want to let in, and the ones who are there to help don’t always know how. It’s a deep meditation on how external events can reshape our brain chemistry, which in turn affects how we move through life.

Did this book hit me the same I suspect it will hit others? Not really. It verges on poetry in a way that made me zoom through it. And while I can empathize with Felix’s intense episodes of pain, disappointment, and loss, my life has been extremely different from hers; I’m not sure I have ever felt the same depths that she has felt. Dyscalculia did not resonate with me, but I am sure it will resonate with many.

Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.

[Meagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It almost feels wrong to put an amount of stars on a book like this. Like you're putting stars on Felix's trauma. This book sticks with you after you're finished. The beautifully written prose keeps you hanging on. We can all do with a dose of honesty and Felix does not disappoint. She is an inspiration as a human being and as a writer.

Do yourself a favor and read this book.

[Kristina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I expected to like this book but a) I didn't feel like the book tied dyscalculia to her breakup in any ways other than by name and page graphics and b) this is a really difficult trauma diary with all of the trigger warnings, which is not what the description led me to believe. I guess that I picked it up because I was really interested in the dyscalculia element and that was a minor plot point that really didn't provide any insights for me.

[Basic B's Guide]

Sampled the audio for 30 min and found the storytelling very poetic (not a problem) but also very confusing. I struggled to stay engaged so I’m putting it aside for now. I may try the physical copy.

[fangirlishwandering · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I loved a man so hard it made me sick. I loved myself so hard I brought her back.” ❤️

[Veronica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank You to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

This was my first Camonghne Felix read, and certainly won’t be the last. As another reviewer stated, it’s strange to give a rating on someone’s trauma, but these five stars are well worth putting up for how beautifully the difficult, heart wrenching subjects were presented to the reader. This book is not delicate like a flower, it’s delicate like a bomb, with intricately spun words weaving the tales of shocking evils the author had to endure. Thank you for giving us this wonderfully worded book which confronts trauma, and gives hope to heal from it through acceptance of self and hard work.

“It is not the world’s job to understand you, it is your job to understand the world.”

[Uzma Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay I shared my thoughts on my tik tok because sometimes I can’t write very well

[Tali Nay · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not my thing. I expected this to be more readable, instead of the random bits it is composed of. I appreciate the honesty, even though it was confusing to follow at times, but wanted something more substantial. And also wanted more details about dyscalculia. I assumed this would be a story of the many times that this condition led the author to miscalculate various aspects of romantic life (it’s a clever premise for a book and the reason I purchased it), but it seems like it’s really just one story of one guy (I think?) and her own mental state and infidelity seemed to contribute more to the dissolution of the relationship than any issues with math.

[Ashley Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dyscalculia left me feeling both empathic and confused.

The description of the trauma, the hospital, what it was like to perform self-harm, etc, were very descriptive and felt genuine and real. Her experience with trauma, healing, and mental health was well written and experienced inside the memoir.

Then we have the other half that confused me. This memoir was non-linear, and that made it really hard for me to follow the very toxic relationship. I also struggled with the math comparison stuff that was thrown in. I get the reason why the math was in there, but I also feel like it was really the only thing that brought in the dyscalculia into the book other than the initial diagnosis.

[Murray Annae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why did I think this was going to be a light read because of how short it was?😅

This book packed more of a story than I was expecting AND made more of an impact than I was prepared for. I love a growth story, but “when you're healed you tell the story differently” knocked me into next week. Embracing radical self acceptance while having the ability to look back without rose colored glasses is attainable♥️ I cried a lot while reading

TW: sexual assault, child sexual assault, PTSD, self harm, abortion

[Kira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps it's unsavoury to express personal enjoyment at the expense of someone else's traumatic admission, but I loved this book. Felix's experience is specific and singular, but it is articulated in a way that is engaging for every reader. I read through this in practically one sitting. It was written so poetically and I admired the dynamic use of language and format, especially because there is so much skill required to use beautiful language to depict some extremely difficult experiences.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/2 stars. I relate so much to the author of this book. I suffered similar abuse, and repressed most of the memories until I was in my 30s, as an adult, more equipped to handle them, though it shattered me for a long time. She never forgot anything and acted out quite a bit, which knowing her trauma was to be expected. This exhausted her family until her mother blamed her for letting it happen and kicked her out. I was in a psych ward and spent a whole day remembering how I longed to tell my mother and didn’t because I was convinced she wouldn’t believe me.
Camonghne wasn’t ready to participate in her healing until she went through a painful breakup. What fascinates me the most was a symptom called dyscalculia, which blocks the brain from understanding and learning math. I also had/have this symptom. I was/am terrible with math, and my father was a math teacher.
This book is written with intelligence, insight and searing honesty that really speaks to how damaging and painful sexual abuse is. She shares to degrees one can be healed and become part of how/why you are who you are without self hate and with peace.

[Katie Konneker · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s official: I’m not a memoir or poetry person.

Also incredibly disappointed and annoyed that dyscalculia was such a non-element. As someone who was diagnosed with dyscalculia as a kid and struggled with it for the majority of my life, I was so excited to read about another person’s experience with it because it’s so underrepresented and misunderstood. But instead the author’s dyscalculia is just a minor blip in her overall story, to the point where I feel like the title and synopsis are kind of false advertising.

Idk, I’m deep in my feelings about this one. I’m just mad lol.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is beautiful. It is poetic, painful, and self-aware. The epitome of what I consider good prose and phenomenal poesy.

I have never before seen how beautiful the concrete can be when tied with the fluid intangibility that is art, and poetry— and yet somehow Felix uses math as her vehicle for recounting her life, it’s problems, it’s inability to add up, it’s chafing and leaves her readers changed for it.

We are fractals, collapsing in on ourselves over and over and over. Infinitely, limitlessly and isn’t that quite beautiful?

5 gorgeous stars ⭐️ because I can. ;)

[Alli · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a lot of feelings and opinions about this book, mostly in the way that it is written/formatted/structured. Feeling very Mr. Knightley but in the opposite way - if i hated you less i might be able to talk about it more LMAO

[Adrienne Blaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well if that didn’t just blow me away. This is what a prose poem this length can really do.

I’ve been underwhelmed by the promulgation of lyric essay books written by poets focused on a theme. They read to me like a collection of Tumblr posts circa 2010 — profound in the way it feels to watch yourself cry in the mirror when you think it makes you look prettier. But that’s what poetry is sometimes.

Camonghne Felix describes a similar feeling about attending poetry readings: […] but I go for the cringe and stay for that rare moment of magic that snicks that pure stretch of skin behind the ear.

One of my favorite lines from this book observes:

A good love poem’s drunk on authority. It’s pathetic, self-important, of limited utility, and it fails its audience by design.

And while Camonghne Felix writes that this is simply her story of heartbreak, it is that and more.

Black girls get to write about benign heartbreak too. Proud and saccharine and pathetic.

This book is that poetic moment of magic.

[Valerie Espinal · Rating 4 out of 5]

the kind of book where you feel every single emotion in your chest. just wasn’t a fan of the structure/formatting of it :/

[Jimena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es difícil calificar memorias porque cómo o bajo qué falsa potestad valorarías en términos numéricos las experiencias de otra persona, especialmente cuando las atraviesa tan indiscutida desolación. ¿Por cómo está escrita? ¿Por el estilo? Resulta frío, casi vulgar. ¿Por cuánto empatices con su dolor? Condescendiente.

Dyacalculia es una mujer desnudando algunos de sus conflictos fundamentales, transitando lo demoledor de una ruptura, lo peligroso de una obsesión pero lo incluso más complejo de un temprano y erróneo diagnóstico de ADHD finalmente convertido en uno de bipolaridad de grado II.

Los medicamentos, la desconexión, los intentos suicidas. El agotamiento, la tensión con otros, la incomprensión. Los arranques de ira, la autoflagelación, la soledad. El amor. El deseo. Son múltiples los tópicos abordados por la autora en una experiencia de no ficción que, personalmente, me caló de forma profunda. Recomiendo.

[Kaiomi]

Wow she just like me!

I was drawn to this because of the name, given I have dyscalculia myself. This was not about that though, but instead a look into trauma, mental illness, and relationships.

I found the writing style to be quite intriguing even if a bit confusing at times. I felt like the book was cut short and I wanted more from it. Unsure of how I feel overall, but always interested in texts that discuss bipolar 2/experiences with the mental health system.

[ThatBookish_deviant · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5

Dyscalculia is an emotionally raw display of how the abuse Camonghne Felix endures as a child impacts her mental health as an adult. It’s an unsettlingly brutal, honest, and heartfelt memoir told via beautifully constructed prose.

Stylistically, Felix is a poet at heart which is fully evident in the lovely composition of Dyscalculia. It’s a quick-to-read novella that delivers an impactful punch.

[April (whataprilreads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4✨

I love when the world gives space for Black women to exist. To rage and hurt and love and scream and fuck it up and sink into a terrible spiral and figure it out and then tell us about it. I needed that.

—

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