F-You Book Review

“Sometimes our deepest pains become our most beautiful lessons,” writes Tara Muldoon, founder of F-You: The Forgiveness Project, in her new book F-You: The Forgiveness Project – Memoirs on Violence and Compassion.

Muldoon created a dialogue through the F-You Project defining forgiveness and evolving trauma into healing through a discussion group, which became a movement, which in turn led to the F-You book. The volume features 21 pieces of writing from talented young people, including poetry and personal reflections on forgiveness, as these young minds share insight on their journey to recovery through their unique stories and powerful perspectives.

With project co-signs from Manifesto’s former Executive Director, Che Kothari, super-producer Boi-1da and The Globe and Mail, the book is sure to create a conversation about the importance of forgiveness, word-by-word and page-by-page.

Canadian hip-hop icon, Kardinal Offishall sets the tone of the captivating book with a well-written, realistic foreword as a voice for the rap community, taking responsibility for the problems the music industry causes and urging readers to set goals in order to begin to make a real change so that these communities shy away from violence.

Muldoon then takes over the pen, introducing the book by sharing her own struggle to recover from her personal life traumas through forgiveness and credits the movement for being able to let go in a beautifully honest testimony, before turning the remainder of the book over to the young writers.

Canadian hip-hop artist, L The 12th Letter draws a powerful parallel between bullets and words in his intriguing piece titled, “Words”, Jessica Kaya pulls at the heartstrings while writing a genuine piece on suicide, loneliness and mental illness, while Sahar T captures a shooting victim, speaking beyond the grave to his shooter in the passionately-written, “Barrel of the Gun”.

The book even leaves pages at the end for personal reflection notes so that readers can use the book as a tool during their own process of forgiveness.

F-You: The Forgiveness Project – Memoirs on Violence and Compassion is an innovative and passionate project. While highlighting the talented writing skills of each author involved, it is also sure to open eyes and minds on reasons for the current state of violence and the importance of letting go.