this little book is a lightly edited transcription of a notebook containing extremely private conversations between didion and her therapist.
in subject matter and in concept, the mind reels — how could publishing this book, about which didion left no notes to her publisher, possibly be ethically acceptable? this book, which contains a woman’s grief, and her complicated (often jarring) thoughts about her daughter, and things she wrote about alongside things she avoided all her life.
at first, i thought i could never allow myself to read this. which was a bummer because i really wanted to.
but then i thought about it more. this book was left with didion’s writing materials, filed with papers referencing MY YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING and BLUE NIGHTS, the books she wrote about her husband’s and daughter’s passing.
it, like all of didion’s papers, was slated to be given to the new york public library, where it would have been accessed and analyzed and likely to some degree published no matter what beginning in march. (let it be said here that i think pop-science-esque “criticism” like DIDION AND BABITZ is more of a crime than the author’s own words ever could be.)
but really, it comes down to the author herself. much has been made of didion’s commitment to her art and to her legacy, and based on everything i’ve known and read of her, it’s my opinion that she never would have neatly left anything she didn’t intend to contribute to her canon. so i picked it up.
and, for me, this was a propulsive read.
"i'd read her grocery list" is a common phrase on this site, and one i'd apply myself to joan didion. her every move always seemed so considered, each word the exact right one for its moment, each book building upon the legacy she'd constructed for herself.
until i picked this up.
it's an almost breathless rendering of the therapy sessions didion had about her daughter, trying to save their relationship in the hopes it'd save her. though they're addressed to john, her husband, in truth he was present at several of them, didn't need the notes. the idea that the impenetrable didion needed to construct a purpose in order to document these unbearably vulnerable sessions is just one of the many heartrending things about this book.
this was the first time in a very long time i've read anything with a pen in hand, underlining voraciously, propelling myself through this and knowing the heartbreak that waited just a few months after its conclusion. the dramatic irony of what we know as readers makes this a cruel read, but its value as an addition to didion's work speaks for itself.
its publication just months after the bitter, vapid book i mention above is sweet and satisfying. didion was private, not unfeeling; anxious, depressed, desperate to do right by those she loved, far from cold.
bottom line: this insight into the mind of one of our greatest writers is a treasure.
if i can't teleport to italy i guess i'll just read about it.
(and i read this while on a work trip to columbus, ohio just to rub it in.)
not only was tif i can't teleport to italy i guess i'll just read about it.
(and i read this while on a work trip to columbus, ohio just to rub it in.)
not only was this so cleverly descriptive that it took me out of columbus and dropped me in tuscany, and so beautifully written as to make me use my pen and my bookmark to underline lines during a turbulent flight, and so intelligent about art and life that i found myself rereading paragraphs...
it is also the rarest, for books, thing of all: funny.
at one point the relentless and dutiful reports from the tangled social world of textbook characters actually made me laugh out loud. more accurately, it made me puff air out my nose, then do it again but with more force, and then finally let out a single guffaw. i read this in so many not ideal places: conference rooms before meetings, taxiing planes, on the floor of a failing mall...and it brought me peace and joy in all of them. i never wanted to finish.
i expected to enjoy this book, because i love translated literature by women and i never tire of reading aboi wish that were my life in three stories.
i expected to enjoy this book, because i love translated literature by women and i never tire of reading about france.
i didn't expect to be so impressed by it!
the author's self awareness, the way she writes emotionally but cleanly and sparsely, her rendering of her life through such clear and simple prose...all of it blew me away. i was enraptured by the last novella in particular, gobbling up the pages, my heart hurting, hoping for a happily ever after.
so who cares about the weaker moments.
bottom line: i am so pleasantly surprised. by a book i expected to like! what a treat.
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
this book was the most exciting news of my year and i got engaged the week it was announced.
somehow, it still exceeded my life-altering, world-centerithis book was the most exciting news of my year and i got engaged the week it was announced.
somehow, it still exceeded my life-altering, world-centering, unrealistic-to-the-point-of-being-annoying expectations.
with every book, sally rooney seems to challenge herself in a new way, showing that in the years since her last release while we've all been pining and watching paul mescal fan edits she's been ever (somehow! still!) building on her craft. in beautiful world, where are you, for example, she displayed a totally new and mesmerizing use of visual language and natural motif that i fell in love with.
here, her use of perspective is stunning. i'm a multi-pov hater, but this manages to feel like something entirely different even as it follows the interiority of three characters. it seamlessly transitions between the three while still being vividly distinct: peter's staccato trains of thought, margaret's quiet self-reflection, ivan's anxious rambling. i've never read anything like it.
decisions like the little we see from within the two female characters in peter's orbit, and are immersed in the world of ivan's, feels so true to their characters and to their stories — and such an interesting facet to the characteristic sociopolitical explorations that are the true gem of rooney's writing.
rooney also challenges herself to create characters who are simultaneously unlikable and real, making decisions that threaten to get you to put the book down and sigh while being mercilessly relatable and easy to understand.
that's what we're working with here. a novel in which every choice is so thoughtful that you can spend a minute reading a page, then pause for five minutes just to consider it. which is basically what i did (read: make myself spend a month reading this because i so dreaded not having any more of it to draw out).
peter and ivan each represent a shade of misogyny, of straight-white-man-ism in modern society, that doesn't forgive itself even while it refuses to let you ignore their own humanity and histories.
peter's perspective, made up of brief ulyssean phrases and stunning descriptions, varies as much from ivan's terminally introspective one as the two brothers do from each other.
rooney's past books have focused on waxing and waning romantic (and semi-romantic) relationships; beautiful world also features a platonic one at its core. this one takes as its subject siblings, at first nearly estranged, as they struggle toward each other.
anyway. i often hate multiple perspectives because it always feels there's one the author is more comfortable with, that the choice to distinguish the two is because they have to be different because they're different characters. rooney's decision is deliberate, each perspective difference thought out, and because of that both are wildly impressive.
i loved this book.
bottom line: all the it girls love intermezzo and all the it girls are right.
(thank you from the bottom of my heart to the publisher for the arc) (buddy read of a lifetime with my favorite girl elle)...more
it has one of the best beginnings i've ever read, and it has one of the best endings i've ever read, and all of i need this book injected in my veins.
it has one of the best beginnings i've ever read, and it has one of the best endings i've ever read, and all of the middle parts are pretty damn good too.
its explorations of family, of naming, of the permanently unhealed wound of slavery, of gender and power, and of love are unforgettable.
i hate reviewing books i love at the best of times, and for this one in particular there is just no way i can do it justice.
bottom line: please, for the love of yourself, read it....more
this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every second it makes you want to go back and lower the rating of everything you've read of late.
it is so funny and so precise and so clever, and a page will have a random unshakable description that is so goddamn weird and right. i fell completely in love with these characters and with this book, and as the end of it approached i read slower and slower in the hopes i'd discover 100 or so pages had been stuck together and hiding.
once upon a time, i had a very long, very passionate review of this book uploaded, with very long, very passionate pages of comments, and generally itonce upon a time, i had a very long, very passionate review of this book uploaded, with very long, very passionate pages of comments, and generally it was one of my favorite reviews (and of one of my favorite books) with one of my favorite ensuing discussions.
i’m a longstanding opponent of the not like other girls trope (i’m on the record since like 2015, which means this hatred significantly outlives most of my opinions, relationships, and sweaters), but i do like to be unlike other people. i turn the average meal-to-dessert ratio on its head. i stan dunkin over starbucks. i am in the midst of a lifelong quest to have the single most disturbing sleep schedule i can.
and of course, above all, i am an appreciator of a good unpopular opinion.
however.
i don’t think my opinion of this book should be unique.
this book has a devastating 3.19, and this is in spite of being complete perfection from beginning to end.
i picked up a library ebook of this, and while several of my very favorites in the world loved this book, i kinda expected to 3.5 it and move on into my resting state of complete forgetting as soon as possible.
instead, i found myself highlighting swaths of text, almost buzzing with that oh my god is this is a five star this might be a five star feeling, resonating with the emotions depicted and stunned by how lovely and clear the writing was.
and then i finished it, bought a copy, and reread and annotated it barely a week after reading it for the first time.
it’s really an easy five star, filled with taboo topics and fascinating characters and revealing dynamics. it’s about love and sex, gender and power, and how to find yourself or even know what that would look like. it’s about searching for happiness and meaning while being unable to admit that’s what you’re doing.
it’s everything that i think about the most.
bottom line: read it!!!
-------------------- reread update
nothing says five star read like rereading after a week
-------------------- pre-review
never happier than when i love a book everyone hates :)
review to come / 4.5 or 5 stars
-------------------- tbr review
the best thing that can possibly happen to a person is when they get very into a subgenre that is also simultaneously the single most trendy and common subgenre there is.
which, if you have the misfortune of having encountered me before, you know happens precisely never.
this book is so beautifullyi am almost speechless.
which, if you have the misfortune of having encountered me before, you know happens precisely never.
this book is so beautifully written, so emotive, and so brilliant. i initially gave it 5 stars, and i would have kept it there, except i have since read bluets and found it a slightly more satisfying (for me) version of this.
even still, it has to be 4.5.
han kang hive stays winning.
bottom line: wow wow wow.
------------ pre-review
holy f*cking moley.
review to come / 4.5 stars
------------ currently-reading updates
i have loyalty to two things in life: brown butter chocolate chip cookies, and han kang
periodically, i have to check to see if i still dislike poetry. for character development.
unfortunately, this has had, in this case, an unforeseen sidperiodically, i have to check to see if i still dislike poetry. for character development.
unfortunately, this has had, in this case, an unforeseen side effect: THIS TIME, I DID.
i read this last month (okay, two months ago, what about it i’m terribly behind) and i felt this sneaky sinking feeling i should 5 star it. but not to worry, because i’m doing this new totally normal not at all deranged thing where if i want to give a book 5 stars, i have to reread it before i review it.
so usually i am reading said book twice in one month.
like i said - normal stuff.
so i read this again. it’s still a 5.
this is prose poetry, which in this case means a tiny little book divided into number paragraphs of stunning writing, not only doable for me but pretty ideal. generally it’s my favorite kind of book: lovely turns of phrase, filled with beautiful explorations of what it is to be human / to hurt / to feel / to love.
throw in a bunch of fun facts and interesting topics and observations about sex and i’m in love.
bottom line: i never in a million years expected to say this but…kind of a dream!...more
to have been in a reading slump for more than a month, maybe longer, during which reading never even occurs to you and feels unnatural when it does, ato have been in a reading slump for more than a month, maybe longer, during which reading never even occurs to you and feels unnatural when it does, and then you start to feel it might be over and you finish a short book or two but then you pick one up that you actually can't stop reading, that you find your mind touching on in idle moments and your hands picking up whenever you have a spare moment - what a thing!!
this was beautiful, stimulating, and lovely, and reading a book called autumn during autumn, which is also my favorite season...pure bliss.
i adore what i learned. i adored the end. i adore feelings precisely like the one i had while reading this, finally out of a long, mournful reading slump.
bottom line: it's taking everything in me to wait till winter to read winter!
------------------ currently-reading updates
tis the season!
------------------ tbr review
i'll admit it. i added this book for aesthetic alone...more
I, for example, come extraordinarily close, and even I have my flaws. I work too hard. I give too much to charity. I cannot, FOR THENobody is perfect.
I, for example, come extraordinarily close, and even I have my flaws. I work too hard. I give too much to charity. I cannot, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, WRITE A POSITIVE REVIEW.
I can write negative reviews all day, and have fun doing it. Give me a book that is offensive, or dumb, or just plain bad, and we'll have the time of our lives roasting each other up.
But when I love a book?
Hoo boy. Bad news bears.
The highest compliment I can give a book is that it reminds me of Sally Rooney, the author of my heart, and Brandon Taylor's clear and lovely style does that in spades. This book wrapped me up in it, affecting the language of my internal monologue and the nuances of my mood and refusing to allow me to put it down until I finished - keeping itself at the forefront of my mind even if I did manage to take a break.
I read the author's short story collection earlier in the month, and while I didn't completely love it, I couldn't really shake it. Reading this seemed like a foregone conclusion, and was almost exactly like reading a novel-length version of some of my favorite stories from it.
This story, of Wallace, a gay Black science grad student surrounded by whiteness and solitude, even when in the company of others, has so much to say about violence, about race, about loneliness, about sex and love and cruelty.
Bottom line: Just read it!!!
----------------- book club update
i loved this book when i first read it, and i loved it even more this time. and now i really need to talk about it with someone so please join book club discussion: https://www.instagram.com/p/C3i17w1LZpD/
5 stars!
----------------- pre-review
"when you know you know" - most people about true love / me about authors i like
There were very many characters in this book that I didn't like, but also I wasn't supposed to, but also even when I'm not supposed to I usually do anThere were very many characters in this book that I didn't like, but also I wasn't supposed to, but also even when I'm not supposed to I usually do anyway, often more than when I AM supposed to.
And also, in addition to this, there was a character I loved so much that I cried through her chapters (of which there are only two), an insanely earnest and vulnerable moment the likes of which has never occurred to me ever.
How the hell am I supposed to rate that?
I guess, considering that it's been a month since I read this and I haven't been able to stop reading or talking or thinking about it, but also it's been that same amount of time that there's still been one thing bothering me...four point five stars.
For me, this is a book of characters. The writing is lovely, but in relation to the people it creates and summons. There isn't much of a plot to speak of, beyond the shifting dynamics and relationships between them, namely Cleo and Frank, a semi-green-card marriage built mostly on passion and age difference, and those around them: Frank's younger half-sister, Zoë; Frank's friends, Anders, and another more boring and half-hearted inclusion whose name I don't remember; Cleo's best friend Quentin; Zoë's best friend Audrey; and finally, ELEANOR.
So basically this will be my review of this group of people.
(I keep wanting to call them people. They don't exist, emma! To my eternal chagrin.)
First - I didn't look any of those names up. So the fact that they stuck with me the way they did says a lot, no? I have the functioning memory of a goldfish, and not in the Ted Lasso motivational speaking way.
Let's start with the bad news.
I hate Cleo and her goofy artsy poetic depression very much. I find attempts at making violent mental illness beautiful to be very gross and in poor taste, at best, and devastatingly unrealistic at worse. I, like every vaguely creative young person, have multiple diagnoses, but my brain chemistry failures never include installing art with my self harmed body at the center for my loved ones to find, I will tell you that.
Who, in the midst of a depressive breakdown, even has the energy?
This is the only part of this book I genuinely and actively disliked. Fortunately or unfortunately, it was nowhere close to enough to get me to shut up about it.
Anyway.
Many of the people in Cleo's life are also somehow both unrealistic and uninteresting, like her drug addicted and toxic gay best friend (cliché, cliché) best friend Quentin and her brief love interest Anders (an older man who sleeps with younger women and doesn't view them as people, how original).
Frank, though he is a workaholic alcoholic with a younger wife and thereby also a cliché, somehow pulls off the grand accomplishment of being consistently intriguing to read about, as does his very annoying sister Zoë and her rarely present friend Audrey.
But none of them really matter very much, somewhat because all of them are supposed to be complicated and hard to like, but mostly because the greatest character of my reading life is in these pages.
Eleanor, Eleanor, Eleanor.
I love her so much I don't know what to do with myself. Her life, her jokes, her work, her allusions. Her mom and dad, her brother, her friends. Her house and her train rides and - I am genuinely getting worked up and I have to stop.
The last thing I'll say is that lately I have been holding a pen in my hand while I read, but I'm rarely prompted to use it.
There were countless exceptions in this.
Bottom line: If only characters were real.
------------------- tbr review
the very idea of cleopatra and frankenstein...think of what they could accomplish.
by reading my first toni morrison i believed i would ascend into a higher plane. and i was right.
i would like to apologize to all of the dinners i ruiby reading my first toni morrison i believed i would ascend into a higher plane. and i was right.
i would like to apologize to all of the dinners i ruined with friends, my boyfriend, family, and other loved ones because i could not stop talking about the brilliant, dark, vibe-ruining concept of this book.
this was my first toni morrison, my first new favorite of the year, and the first time in a long time i've been completely dumbstruck while reading.
beautifully written, cleverly constructed, populated with unforgettable moments and characters.
i don't know what to say!
bottom line: a book that makes me speechless. a nearly impossible feat....more
After 18 years of literacy, 7 years on this hellsite, a thousand books read, and every genre tried at least one, I am finally ready to declare it.
The After 18 years of literacy, 7 years on this hellsite, a thousand books read, and every genre tried at least one, I am finally ready to declare it.
The best books are short works of literary fiction.
Here is a list of things the aforementioned subgenre has going for it: - They're beautifully written. - You can read them in a day. - They make you feel smart. - They are often brilliant and/or clever and/or thoughtful. - They make you think. - Even if you don't like it, it's over very quickly.
This book, for example, is very gorgeous, and philosophical, and made me ponder quite a bit, and I read it in a day. And I had time to read a whole other book.
Couldn't ask for more!
Bottom line: This could be a 5 star someday!
------------------ pre-review
i think i'm finally figuring out how to pick up books i'll like.
only took me a million years.
review to come / at least 4.5
------------------ tbr review
what's your favorite genre that you made up? mine is short books with low average ratings...more
Here is a description of one of the best kinds of books, which is also among the best reading experiences:
When you wake up on a weekend morning duringHere is a description of one of the best kinds of books, which is also among the best reading experiences:
When you wake up on a weekend morning during which you don't have to really do anything, so you get your cup of coffee and get back in bed with your book, intending to read for only a little while, and instead you fall totally into the story and before you know it it's the afternoon and you've finished an excellent story and you're still in your pajamas and your coffee is cold.
This is an incredibly specific type of read to me, and one I only have probably once a year. I cherish it.
It requires the following: - lovely writing - characters I care about - a story that grabs me but is also comforting
Obviously, since my finding even one of these traits in a book is a rare feat that requires a parade and/or block party to properly commemorate its triannual accomplishment, all three in the span of a few hundred pages takes the kind of specific magic called for in old-timey witches' potions. A protagonist I truly like is approximately as fantastical and hard to come by as newts' eyes, or powdered sea urchin, or whatever.
I did kind of have to manually stay in this, from time to time - ideally I look at a page at around 11 am and look up upon shutting the book what feels like a moment later to discover it's hours later, and in this case I had to choose to stay with this, not consistently carried away by it.
So it's a four star miracle. But a miracle all the same.
Bottom line: I already feel nostalgic for this reading experience. In case that wasn't abundantly clear.
----------------- pre-review
holy moley.
i'm glad i waited to read a print copy. the audiobook could not do this story justice.
review to come / 4 stars
----------------- currently-reading updates
learning my lesson
--------
taking this off my currently reading because i just realized the audiobook was playing for approximately one hour and i was not even slightly listening.
Sometimes, something can be masterfully done and still be pointless.
McDonald's franchises can be inside beautiful buildings. Abstract art can be...in Sometimes, something can be masterfully done and still be pointless.
McDonald's franchises can be inside beautiful buildings. Abstract art can be...in existence. And a story like this one, the millionth book about a male unreliable narrator doing horrible things, can be excellent.
But why does it matter?
The fries will still taste the same (good for a few minutes and then not even food after that), I will still not understand art, and this story will still have nothing to add.
Since there has BEEN a canon to literary about, there have been books about men who are unreliable and bad. The writing style can differ, the evils that the men commit can vary, but fundamentally they are saying and doing the same thing.
So even this great author adding to that population still doesn't actually add anything. Because they're all the same.
Does that make sense?
Bottom line: I'm not angry, I'm disappointed.
Also, the abstract art part was a joke. That one's on me.
I mean it about the fries, though.
----------------- pre-review
this is a very brilliant book that i did not care for much at all.
review to come / 3ish stars
----------------- currently-reading updates
let's try this again
-----------------
i have to put this on hold, because i am currently about as likely to finish a 500 page book as i am to scale mount everest.
i read most of this stone-faced, face unchanged even as i was recalling repressed traumas with needle-like stabs, even as my heart ached for carmen mai read most of this stone-faced, face unchanged even as i was recalling repressed traumas with needle-like stabs, even as my heart ached for carmen maria machado, even as the pained gorgeousness of the writing took my breath away.
and then i got to the part where things are allowed to be happy again. and i burst into tears.
this is a beautifully written, brilliant researched, painful and raw and horrific and wonderful nightmarish fairytale of a book. it's 5 stars and i will never read it again but i will think about it all the time.
bottom line: sometimes, you read a masterpiece. sometimes, a book hits you at exactly the right time. finding both in one tome is once in a lifetime.
----------------- tbr review
do you ever put off reading a book because you know it'll hit you too hard?
file "one of the best writers i can think of writing about the thing that is closest possible to home" under that....more
This is an excellent, maybe perfect book, and I will never recommend it to anyone.
The edition I read is 951 pages long, and I read it in 24 hours. My This is an excellent, maybe perfect book, and I will never recommend it to anyone.
The edition I read is 951 pages long, and I read it in 24 hours. My sister calculated that I read a page every waking minute, even as it was a workday. I have never in my life lived inside a story like I did this one.
I slept little. I couldn't focus on anything. When I tried to pick up books after this one they were pale imitations to what I had learned storytelling could be.
I have never loved characters like this, like I knew them. I have never gasped and cried and said "nonono" like I did with this.
This HURT.
So while it was an extraordinary experience, a one-of-a-kind story, maybe something I would otherwise have perceived as the type of book that keeps us reading...
Don't pick it up.
Because not only is this book so goddamn painful (and yes, everything you've heard about how sad this is is true tenfold), but it makes other stories feel less.
Consume at your own risk.
Bottom line: Damn you, Hanya Yanagihara, you evil sorcerer.
I'm a sucker for any story that makes us think about what makes life worth living, about the beauty in the mundaThis is an absolute stunner of a book.
I'm a sucker for any story that makes us think about what makes life worth living, about the beauty in the mundane. So this book, which explores how the aspects of the everyday that we may consider the "little things" - clocks, movies, music, chocolate, cats - make existence what it is, not because they're delicious or fun or even meaningful, but because they connect us with the people and world around us...well, that's right up my alley.
The point, always, is other people.
Bottom line: Little and lovely.
----------------- pre-review
"'There are so many cruel things in the world,' he once told us. 'But there are also just as many beautiful things.'"
and then later: "I began to tear up. My thoughts were too much for me to handle, so I turned to look out the window of the plane. Outside I could see the ocean filled with icebergs stretching on and on into the distance. The setting sun gave the sea of ice a purple hue - it was so beautiful it was almost cruel."
anyway, this was very good.
review to come / 4.5 stars
----------------- tbr review
i mean, first impression: that'd be kind of a bummer....more