Book Review: Things I Have Loved by Sophia Hembeck

RACHEL SOO THOW - 13 JUN 2023

PHOTO SUPPLIED

“I should have always felt loved and worthy.

It’s interesting how breakups are never just about that particular heartbreak itself. One heartbreak is almost always a reflection of all the heartbreaks ever had, coming from somewhere deeper. And I guess that’s where I am right now. At the core, the prehistoric wound. Where it all started.”

It’s rarely (ever) that, when sent a memoir directly from an author, I’ve been this floored with emotion, but Things I Have Loved by Sophia Hembeck has done just that. I’ve tabbed and underlined nearly every page with passages that have just simply left me broken and feeling seen. Hembeck’s prose seems to unfold and come to light like a Polaroid developing in the cold, crisp air; scatterings of love and heartbreak are strewn throughout, and I found myself taken back to ‘prehistoric wounds’, those moments in time that left me heartbroken and longing, along with analysing self-worth and growth gained along the way. This is a poetic memoir told through objects that Hembeck has loved, and her ability to weave this narrative in with delicate red monochrome photographs is a direct reflection of the musings of a broken heart. Memories on love, things that were lost, and smatterings of references from Rebecca Solnit, Louise Erdrich, Olivia Laing and Joan Didion will leave you breathless and feeling understood.

Side note: if you haven’t read the likes of Solnit and Laing, they perfectly exhibit feelings of loneliness in their work - at a time when I was single and still trying to find my way back from a relationship that was anything but toxic, these authors pulled me through. There’s this type of ideology where sometimes I feel, even for a second, like I’m not connecting with others, and that at core, this tapestry of life we call society will somehow falter: are we better off being unconnected? Such a loopy way of thinking, I know, yet this fine balance between social connections and one’s own problems is what leads us to that archetype of the self-reliant individual. We embody this way of thinking that’s just our own: our own world where we get to step back in union or fight and flee at our own prerogative. It’s hard to say if this ideology of being content in one’s own independence is advantageous as we are caught within the tide pool of interconnectedness and the realities of modern freedom through personal relationships, work, friendships etc, but this isn’t a questioning of whether the relationships around us exist - if we remove such an element from the whole, then we are denying the very relationship between cause and effect. Emotion and reaction. A deregulation of all meaning and one’s worth in society.

Hembeck’s Things I Have Loved isn’t just a memoir on heartbreak, it’s a book on realising that there are those in your life that see you even when you don’t see yourself. It’s a deep-dive into pop culture, the consequences of alcohol, and such instances that took me back to being smacked as a child because I was a little sh*t (back in the day, when it was ok to do so of course) - the certainties of feeling young, and making mistakes that today would have left us embarrassed on socials. A hope emerges. The age of being reckless doesn’t just stop because you turned thirty. There’s still time to get things right and every breath taken is a chance to begin again.

For all my broken heart girlies wanting to feel understood and to have your feelings spilt wide on a tile floor, then I present to you the memoir that will have you carting it everywhere you go for comfort.

P.S. Run, don’t walk to hunt this down, as this beauty of a memoir has sold out a few times and your bookshelf NEEDS it.

---

---