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4.33 AVERAGE
4.33 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I already want to re-read, because this slippery book changes registers quickly and I feel like I don’t fully understand on first read how Nelson slotted all of her pieces together. That said, its portrait of an often angry, anxious woman tapping into her powers in her mid-20’s before her murder (alongside Nelson’s own investigation) is a maddening portrait of premature snuffed out potential. Mix of documentary works and poetry is effective. I connected most with Nelson’s poetry when it was grounded and described her research.
emotional
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
quick yet harrowing read; i was a fan of Bluets so decided to pick this up when i found a used copy. Maggie Nelson is a singular storyteller, the writing remains fluid even with the mixing of genres. She does an incredible job of juxtaposing Jane's diary entries with quotes from different sources about Jane's murder and her own prose to tell the story of Jane's short life, of her family, of being haunted by Jane's murder years later. I blew through most of it in one day, but its brevity only enhances its emotional impact.
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
(read for school)
"Emily retained her ghosts for years. After our father died it became more acute - even as a teenager she dragged around stuffed animals, T-shirts, pillowcases, anything that smelled like the people she loved. Any object could become host to the scent of the dead or the invisible.
I also saved a few things. The most precious was a gray cable-knit sweater of my father's that I kept balled up in a drawer next to my bed, having decided that it carried the most potent scent. One day my mother found it and washed it, saying that it was filthy, that it wouldn't smell like him forever. But she was wrong. It would have."
(Nelson, 2005, 175)
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Maggie Nelson pushed this to the limit, and then she blew right past it. This little book is part prose, part poetry, part true crime, part diary. Part elegy, part conversation between the living and the dead. It’s genre-busting and it goes beyond what I thought poetry could do. It’s pain finding a way to find a form, and it spoke right to my senses.
A strong four and a half stars that I’m deciding to round up because I hate poetry and I think this made me like it.
Also, if you like this, check out Claudia Rankine’s [b:Citizen: An American Lyric|20613761|Citizen An American Lyric|Claudia Rankine|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1420944502l/20613761._SX50_.jpg|39895091].
A strong four and a half stars that I’m deciding to round up because I hate poetry and I think this made me like it.
Also, if you like this, check out Claudia Rankine’s [b:Citizen: An American Lyric|20613761|Citizen An American Lyric|Claudia Rankine|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1420944502l/20613761._SX50_.jpg|39895091].