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anneaustex's review
3.0
The book cover says Say Her Name is "a soaring paean to a brilliant young woman", "passionate and moving", "incandescent", a "beautiful evocation of love and loss". I completely agree that it is a tribute to a very special love lost but I did not particularly enjoy reading this book. Maybe it takes a certain kind of person that I am not. One reviewer here said he especially enjoys "dead spouse books" but I can honestly say I've not yet read one that I enjoyed so take my review with that in mind.
I thought the writing was solid. I wondered at many passages how he had such concrete memories of events, places, and conversations. It felt real and yet it is a novel. There were some really beautiful passages and sections that were very gripping in their honest emotion.
Overall, for me, it was like sitting for hours while someone tells stories of a person you've never met. Perhaps if I knew one or the other of these people the book would have been easier for me to love.
I thought the writing was solid. I wondered at many passages how he had such concrete memories of events, places, and conversations. It felt real and yet it is a novel. There were some really beautiful passages and sections that were very gripping in their honest emotion.
Overall, for me, it was like sitting for hours while someone tells stories of a person you've never met. Perhaps if I knew one or the other of these people the book would have been easier for me to love.
mycouscous's review
3.0
I got an ARC of this from the publisher and slowly made my way through it. There are parts of this book that warrant four stars, but I've settled on a three-star rating for my overall reaction. Goldman's book is a fictionalization of the tragic death of his young wife, Aura and how he coped. It succeeds as a touching homage to Aura, devastating in its subject and beauty, yet it is filled with his "ninote" behavior, which can be off-putting. As someone who appreciates and craves emotionally engaging books, I didn't cry at any point during this book. That's not a dismissal of its moments of power, but I think it says something about the overall tone and narrative style. I don't know who I'd suggest this to.
destak's review
1.0
Good gosh. I didn't think this one would ever end. There is another review on the site by Josh(?) which pretty much echoes my thoughts. Basically by trying to make Aura seem cute, quirky, endearing, Goldman manages to make her almost unbearable. She comes across as spoiled, selfish, irresponsible and quite frankly, just plain unlikeable. Though in all honesty, having been brought up by her petulant mother, Juanita, really didn't give her much of a chance. I felt the book only really hit its stride at the end when Goldman finally divulges the story of their last fateful trip together--that portion almost convinced me to give the book 3 stars. But in the end, even the strongest part of the narrative could raise the worst of it.
I'm somewhat interested in reading some of Goldman's non-fiction works. Perhaps when the sour taste of this one has faded somewhat, I will search them out.
I'm somewhat interested in reading some of Goldman's non-fiction works. Perhaps when the sour taste of this one has faded somewhat, I will search them out.
cookingwithelsa's review against another edition
3.0
This rambling novel (which fits with the experience of grief) has the most bizarre, disconnected ending -- at least to this reader. It ruined it for me. I admit.
It was a slow read as grief is slow.
What I find most interesting is that he doesn't tell us how his wife died until the very end. For most it's the very place you start.
It was a slow read as grief is slow.
What I find most interesting is that he doesn't tell us how his wife died until the very end. For most it's the very place you start.
marcela1016's review against another edition
4.0
Beautiful, sad, heart wrenching, funny and ultimately uplifting. A very worthy addition to the grief memoir genre.
stephaniekhani's review against another edition
Had to put this one down for a bit as I'm a bit blue at the moment and every time I start to read this book I just get a perpetual lump in my throat. A beautiful book but hauntingly sad.
vkemp's review
2.0
This is one of the saddest books I have ever read and that is the sole reason behind the two-star rating. I do not like sad books. I want the good guys to win all the time and I want the girl to get the guy and I want everyone to live happily ever after. That is why I read. Life, itself, is too sad; I want escape. That being said, this is a wonderful paean to grief. Francisco Goldman meets Aura Estrada when she is a gradute student in creative writing sat NYU; her mentor is Peter Carey, the Australian writer. He is 20 years older than she is and a self-professed "eternal adolescent." He and Aura travel together and love together and get married, much to Aura's mother's displeasure and then, Aura dies, in a stupid accident and Francisco has to live with his grief. He hopes to over come this grief by writing about it. This book will rip your heart out, but it is beautifully written. I never would have read it except for this committee.
featherbooks's review
5.0
Until I finished the book and looked at the library cataloguing on the spine, I did not realize it was a novel. It was such a painfully beautiful tribute to the author's wife and his love for her, I was sure it was biography. I can't put it any better than Annie Proulx: "We may feel we know something about love's burn, the scorching heat of loss, but reading this book is to stand in front of a blowtorch, to take a farrier's rasp to raw ends ... Wrenching funny, powerful, beautiful."
tspangler1970's review
4.0
I'd read an excerpt of this in the New Yorker, but my friend Jessamyn handed it to me this summer and told me to read the entire story. It's a memoir of a marriage and of a widower's grief when his young wife is killed in a beach accident. He paints a vivid picture of Aura, their short and happy life together, and of his own deep grief at losing her in such a sudden, violent way. It's raw and devastating and beautifully written.