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literarycrushes's review
5.0
In this beautiful and heart-wrenching collection of essays, Yiyun Li writes with a brutal honestly from the perspective of her own recent attempts at suicide. Suicide surrounds Li throughout the book, to the point of near suffocation. In the title essay, written in the form of a letter to an acquaintance who has recently thrown herself from her office window, Li tries (with little difficulty) to make sense of her decision and their private understanding. A later essay focuses on a childhood classmate back in China who has ended his life, in part, she believes, due to China’s inhospitable environment for dreamers. Her elder son later commits suicide, and Li struggles with withholding the news from her own father as he waits for his own death at home in China.
Though it would have been easy to color her stories with self-pity and futile mourning, Li artfully weaves her experiences into a greater universal narrative of the human condition. While reading her haunting prose, I often paused to reconsider how I looked at certain things. Her words brought a new vivaciousness to subjects I previously could only see in black or white. I hope that these lessons will stick with me and continue to urge me to reevaluate these so-called ‘givens.’ I recommend this to everyone, honestly.
Though it would have been easy to color her stories with self-pity and futile mourning, Li artfully weaves her experiences into a greater universal narrative of the human condition. While reading her haunting prose, I often paused to reconsider how I looked at certain things. Her words brought a new vivaciousness to subjects I previously could only see in black or white. I hope that these lessons will stick with me and continue to urge me to reevaluate these so-called ‘givens.’ I recommend this to everyone, honestly.
twicomb's review
4.0
brilliant but dense
I think this book would be best read in very small portions. I read straight through it and felt overwhelmed. A lot of it was also opaque for me, as I struggled to understand her. But that’s not the fault of the book or the author: that’s simply how I read and interpreted her words. I had no idea how to rate this book. I did love it in the afterglow (as it stayed with me in bits and pieces).
I think this book would be best read in very small portions. I read straight through it and felt overwhelmed. A lot of it was also opaque for me, as I struggled to understand her. But that’s not the fault of the book or the author: that’s simply how I read and interpreted her words. I had no idea how to rate this book. I did love it in the afterglow (as it stayed with me in bits and pieces).
keeperofthetrees's review
4.0
The possibility of being remembered, however, alarms me —it is not from the wish for erasure, but the fear that people’s memories will erase something essential. Expectations met and unmet, interpretations sensible and skewed, understanding granted or withheld, scrutiny out of kindness and malevolence—all these require one to actively accommodate others’ memories. Why not turn away from such intricacy? The less I offer you something to remember, the better I can remember you.
audreyx_'s review
5.0
i genuinely think that people who do not enjoy/understand why others would enjoy yiyun li are so fundamentally different from me that we just cannot truly get along
victoriathuyvi's review against another edition
5.0
A treasure trove of wisdom. One of the most astutely written books I've read in my life.