Andrew’s Reviews > Love WITH Accountability: Digging up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse > Status Update

Quality control is all over the place in this book. The distance between the strongest piece in this section (CeCelia Falls' "Self-Love with Accountability") and the weakest is pretty long,

"I keep asking myself what accountability looks like outside of a carceral response and realized my imagination keeps failing me because I’ve never seen it." - Danie the Degenerate 6/15 Definitely was hoping this book would give an assist to my own imagination when it comes to understanding what accountability could look like.

Reached the second "breathe" interval. Basically just 21 pages but they're an intense 21 pages and I see why Simmons built in these breaks. The mix of poetry, personal essays and interviews means that this is not a straightforward explication of the topic but instead circles around it again and again, taking in multiple angles. Particularly appreciated the prosaic reflections by poets e nina jay and Thea Matthews.

Finished the first five essays and reached the first "breathe" interval which editor Simmons built into the book to encourage readers to take care of themselves while reading the book. "The conscious breath can be a grounding anchor." So far the most striking pieces have been the essay by Simmons' mother acknowledging her own complicity in what happened to her daughter, and the one by James Bevel's daughter.