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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
I loved this book in the beginning, and I made it my entire personality. Tree Abraham’s precision in excavating and articulating her feelings really spoke to me, and gave me this language for the obscure ways I have felt before. I love the mixed media style of the book. It made me start drawing things, and creatively inspired me. I was savoring it, reading a few pages in the mornings for almost a month.
Unfortunately, by the end, it started to lose steam for me. I think it suffers from a sort of terminal uniqueness, as if she thinks she’s the only one to fall in love with her friend and continue to be friends with them. There’s a certain amount of this that you need to make art, but I think she overshot a bit. I have a lot of compassion for this, as I think I’ve felt this way too when I’m in an unrequited situation (nobody loves like I do, etc.), but I found it frustrating to read so much of!
This book also contains *several* mentions of diet culture nonsense, a personal pet peeve of mine, so beware.
Unfortunately, by the end, it started to lose steam for me. I think it suffers from a sort of terminal uniqueness, as if she thinks she’s the only one to fall in love with her friend and continue to be friends with them. There’s a certain amount of this that you need to make art, but I think she overshot a bit. I have a lot of compassion for this, as I think I’ve felt this way too when I’m in an unrequited situation (nobody loves like I do, etc.), but I found it frustrating to read so much of!
This book also contains *several* mentions of diet culture nonsense, a personal pet peeve of mine, so beware.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
challenging
medium-paced
Oh jeeze. I love the concept of this book - I love explorations of love beyond a traditional relationship structure and exploring how friendships can be just as important as relationships. But so much of this book was a miss for me.
1. The writing was obnoxious. It’s like Tree ate and then proceeded to vomit a thesaurus - but I think she actually talks like that. She spends a lot of the book trying to appear quirky and unique, and the writing is pretentious to the point of almost being incomprehensible.
2. The concept of understanding the relationship through the different types of Greek love is fascinating, but likening a would-be romantic partner to parental love is weird. It seems like this one category didn’t fit, but Tree went with the concept anyway.
3. I just genuinely have concerns about how this year of post unrequited love admission was handled. It seems to cross the border into obsession, and seems not to respect how the other unnamed person felt during this time.
Overall - some interesting concepts, and I respect a memoir author is willing to write about some of the ugly parts of themself. A vulnerable work, if nearly insufferable.
1. The writing was obnoxious. It’s like Tree ate and then proceeded to vomit a thesaurus - but I think she actually talks like that. She spends a lot of the book trying to appear quirky and unique, and the writing is pretentious to the point of almost being incomprehensible.
2. The concept of understanding the relationship through the different types of Greek love is fascinating, but likening a would-be romantic partner to parental love is weird. It seems like this one category didn’t fit, but Tree went with the concept anyway.
3. I just genuinely have concerns about how this year of post unrequited love admission was handled. It seems to cross the border into obsession, and seems not to respect how the other unnamed person felt during this time.
Overall - some interesting concepts, and I respect a memoir author is willing to write about some of the ugly parts of themself. A vulnerable work, if nearly insufferable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
I resonate with a lot of the feelings in this book as someone who’s often drawn to unrequited dynamics. But this felt like a book that could have been an essay. By the end I was annoyed by it - too many $50 words where simpler ones would have worked as well and been clearer, too many tangents and waxing poetic.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
i deeply enjoyed tree’s story and her prose. there was so much longing, depth, and intense care put towards this unrequited love. it was beautiful to understand love through this lens. i felt seen in ways unexpected yet very appreciated.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Loved the concept and format, but the language was borderline inaccessible.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Could this be the most romantic book I've ever read? Chewy and delicious and honest and painful and joyful and bitter and sweet. I just loved it. I'm so sad it's over that I might have to read Abraham's book about riding bikes even though there is nothing I relate to less than a love of bike-riding.
emotional
inspiring
sad
slow-paced