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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique. joan didion is the blueprint
3.5...3.75?? I'm torn! I had a hard time getting into the beginning about the original California settlers, though I know it was necessary for her to provide that context to drive the whole message of the book. I thought the description of Lakewood in particular was fascinating and really brought out the journalistic voice that is so iconically Didion.
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
Didion’s tone in this book is very critical and suspicious and really helped me understand where she grew up in California but also helped me question where and how I grew up in New Orleans.
informative
slow-paced
A thoroughly detailed analysis of California as an evolving space and the way it slowly cultivated the unique culture it's known for today. While incredibly interesting and didactic, the writing drags on occasion because of how deeply Didion digs into specifics.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Very similar thoughts and feelings to her other essays on California, but always nice to revisit them.
This was the only Joan Didion book that the library had on the shelf, and ended up not being what I was expecting. The sections dealing with Californian history tended to blur into lists of names that meant very little to me - quite possibly, this would have been different if I were Californian myself.
The sections where Didion speaks more personally, mainly about her own experiences, caught my fancy much more. This leads me to guess that some of her other works might be more appealing to me.
The sections where Didion speaks more personally, mainly about her own experiences, caught my fancy much more. This leads me to guess that some of her other works might be more appealing to me.
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
Read this in the “We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live” compendium.