miggyfool's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0


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kiwichill's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

This biography is extremely well written.   Sandra Pankhurst endured a traumatic and abusive childhood.   She had an extraordinary life, as a transgender woman who survived many dangerous and heartbreakin  situations. She treats the clients of her trauma cleaning business with empathy and compassion.

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sorcha's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

4.25


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ninahuynh's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

I like the interaction the author has with Sandra Pankurst and the reader. The details of each client and of each event in Sandra's life was written in a captivating manner. There are a few times where Sarah Krasnostein could have pulled back on, like the remarks. It breaks me from the main story. Other than that, a great biography. Wonderful and strong woman, Sandra Pankurst.

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chelseylb1988's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0


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a_wild_wyatt's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0


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rhi_'s review

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challenging dark emotional reflective fast-paced

3.25


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sammyd's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring sad fast-paced

3.5


This book wasn't what I was expecting, with it being more a biography of Sandra Pankhurst than a book about her work as a trauma cleaner. That being said Sandra has had a varied, traumatic, interesting and courageous journey which was fascinating to read about. 

I really wanted to like this book and rate it higher but despite enjoying a good deal of it, the only reason I finished it is because I wanted to know how the story concluded in terms of Sandra's present life.

This could have been two distinct books, i would have preferred to read either a biography of Sandra Pankhurst or about her business as a trauma cleaners rather than the mash up it became.

Just to add to the mix, the author told her parts of her own story and seemed to worship Sandra which made me question the authenticity of the writing. Sandra acknowledged that she is an unreliable narrator and her story is fascinating still, but I think this shouldn't have been drawn to the forefront quite so much and instead the focus should have been on what she she did know. The author also seemed to be passing judgement throughout the whole book which felt out of place and unnecessary.

There was some very flowery writing and some bizarre metaphors, overall I think the writing style detracted from the tale being told and the two elements of biography/trauma cleaning should have been either more equally discussed or one omitted entirely.

Not for the faint-hearted, the trigger warnings are lengthy.


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erica_reads_things's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

This was my second read of The Trauma Cleaner within a couple of years. I really loved the audiobook format of this time around - it allowed me to really emerse myself into Sandra's world. What an incredible woman and story. It was interesting to hear the perspective of an older trans woman who transitioned later in life. Her story and what she has turned her life into and for other people is truly incredible. 

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sakisreads's review against another edition

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dark informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

Wow! What a story! Sandra Parkhurst is honestly one incredible woman; reading Sarah’s story of her was heartbreaking and hopeful all at once and I could not stop reading. I felt as though I could only imagine the trauma and the hurt that Sandra had been through, and yet these were things you could almost forget when she was at work helping others to ‘clean up their lives’. It was fascinating getting a peek into what ‘cleaning up trauma scenes’ actually meant and how this was executed. It also really surprised me that it was hardly the police/other figures of authority that did any of that! 😳 This book doesn’t come with an ‘ending’ per se, but I felt like everything I wanted to know was addressed and that it made me feel tearful, angry and happy all at once 😂 A true rollercoaster of emotions comes into play whilst reading this book. I would highly recommend it to anyone ❤️ I might even come back to read/skim it again (and I don’t feel the need to do that with many books). Thank you!

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