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Mariah Schwarz
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Just South of the Solar Plexus: A One Woman Story of Losing Her Self, Surviving Cancer and Reclaiming Her Voice Kindle Edition

by Mariah Schwarz (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 19 ratings
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After a first lifetime of travel and books and wandering and culture and art and family and friends, and the growth of a voice, this author lost herself. Just South of the Solar Plexus, a memoir, is a story about growing voice and power, and then abandoning them in the red dust of the road when the world made it too hard to find her place. The place for her voice. So many of us—especially women—give up our voices, leaving who we are, and our power to change the world to die—unaware that we die with them. After a marriage, a baby, cancer, facing life and death, this writer reclaimed what she had abandoned: her voice and soul. Other writings can be found at: www.thecreativeforce.site
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  1. Print length
    219 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    June 22, 2018
  5. File size
    802 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07DT6GWML
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 22, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 802 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 219 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 19 ratings

About the author

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Mariah Schwarz

Mariah Schwarz

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Mariah Schwarz started writing when she was 14 years old and hasn’t stopped. After studying poetry with Charles Simic in college, she moved to New York City and began publishing poems in poetry reviews. Not long after, she lost her way as a writer and in the world. Wandering across the States and around the world; wondering with books, people, art and cultures; and brushing with mortality during motherhood returned her to herself. Cancer saved her life. She is herself again--a high-end HSP, struggling and celebrating all that means; publishing the memoir that tells that story; and writing all the other poems, meditations and stories waiting to be told--with a new book on the horizon. Her blog is found at www.thecreativeforce.site.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
19 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

D. Jones
5.0 out of 5 stars What if you just have to keep going in spite of it all?
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2019
Verified Purchase
What is more difficult than bearing your soul to another? How about bearing it in public for all to see. This young woman examines all of her hopes, trials, misgivings and false starts for all of us to compare to our own. Add in a potentially fatal condition and the chance to be dead when you have just started, just to keep you interested and you have JSOTSP.
It is the voice of a young woman with courage that has been absent from the American discourse for too long. You need to read this.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Vivid and Insightful with Humor, Pathos and Heart
Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2018
Verified Purchase
Just South of the Solar Plexus is not just one story, but many interwoven, thematically and geographically broad and always powerfully engaging. Stories of hope, growth, actualization, love, struggle and the search for truth. The author finds her voice, loses her voice and finds it again, in the process amplifying the voices and struggles of others. This book is fun, sad, funny and inspiring. In other words: Highly Recommended!
One person found this helpful
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Peter Goldman
5.0 out of 5 stars A Riveting Memoir
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2018
Verified Purchase
Mariah Schwarz has brought a poet's sensibility and a young mother's heart to this sometimes painful, sometimes joyous memoir. She's been through rough times--a bumpy childhood, a broken marriage, a serious cancer--and, by enduring them, has found herself and her lyrical voice. There's a lot of painful truth in her story. It makes a riveting read.
2 people found this helpful
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Julia P
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written and deeply insightful!
Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2018
Verified Purchase
This book really resonated with me! Schwarz' story of her journey of finding herself is unique and universal at the same time. Her reflective self-awareness and vividly colorful descriptions of people, places, and experiences draw you into the world as she sees it. A moving read!
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Montessa
5.0 out of 5 stars The rich imagery will keep you interested and intrigued.
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2019
I really enjoyed reading Mariah's journey! Being that I had a sister that passed from cancer, I was looking for a feel good story about a survivor. I have to say this book was so much more. From the very beginning there was so much rich imagery that I felt like I could see exactly what she was describing, feel the same emotions even. And as a woman, I was definitely able to relate to the struggles for trying to find a relationship that really...um, suits you. Not just finding love with rainbows and butterflies, but really finding someone that speaks to the needs of your soul....I felt that in her words. I was pleased with the book and I plan to re-read it in the near future. It was a very intriguing read! Thanks for sharing with the world!
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George N. Lamont
1.0 out of 5 stars What?
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2018
From the intro to this I made two assumptions: one, the author's first language is almost certainly not English, and two, she has no editor, or the editor needs to be taken to task for this meaningless intro. I think she probably has something very important to say, as cancer survivors often do, but reading the lines "After all that I’d become: I lost myself. Facing life and facing death, so many of us—especially women—give up our voices, leaving who we are, what matters, and how we can change the world in the dust to whither," will baffle any reader who speaks English. "We can change the world in the dust to wither?" What on earth does that mean? And the sentence above it has punctuation that mangles the meaning so that it looks like someone picked words from a thesaurus and just put them together without regard for syntax or grammar or context.

To clarify things I went to the author's website, which is copious and looks like a very long, freewheeling stream of consciousness, maybe very interesting, but I'll never know, because someone used yellow font on a green background, making it literally impossible to read. Squinting gave me a headache so I gave it up. Something about honor or the Lakotas or words or a pelvis, not sure. The background is sort of a deep maroon, and the fonts are red in one place...good luck with that. It's called "A Mother's Nature," but it doesn't seem to have much to do with mothers or nature. Again, maybe it does and the invisible fonts just make it hard to understand. You have to give the author credit for writing, even if the form renders it unavailable to the average reader.

Amazon shouldn't allow blurbs like that, in particular the "whither" line that is unintelligible. ("Whither" is an old fashioned word meaning "where." ) It should at least present the book in a way that people can understand what it's about, even entice people to read it. I would be surprised if anyone read this book because they would assume from the intro that it is all like this, just words that have no relationship to each other written on the page at random.

Again, the author seems sincere and prolific, and no doubt has a powerful story to tell, but sadly it will go untold because of poor writing skills or a bad interpreter. The lesson to be learned? Never use one of those online translators or you will get sentences like that, which make no sense to anyone and lessen the impact of what could be an important work. Get an English speaking friend to read it and ask questions like WTF? does this mean? and maybe fix it. I hope the author of this work does so, and gets an audience and some fair feedback on content which is, for now, locked away from those who might really profit from reading it.
2 people found this helpful
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Mari Beckman
5.0 out of 5 stars Power of Voice
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2018
This memoir is intimate and open, told with vulnerability, strength, and a lot of compassion. The author takes you on her journey backward to uncover when she lost her voice, how she rediscovered it, and the joy, pain, messiness, and transformation inherent in the process. Her courage to go deep within her experience kept me engaged and connected to her story and I found I was equally compelled by the similarities and differences in our perspectives and experiences. This is a book for the times.
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Leigh Lightner
5.0 out of 5 stars Real-life and raw reading, stellar book!!!
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2019
It's a great book about real-life and how people can change, can transform into their true selves even when faced with trauma. Inspirational and worth the read!
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