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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Jami Attenberg is delightful company. Lots of great thoughts on writing and making a home in the world.
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
Solid memoir about finding home & a book tour. I’m always ambivalent about Attenberg’s writing. A little flat.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
I love this book so much. There are so many ways I am different from the author but she has articulated so many of my feelings so well that I feel like we are the same.
Sometimes this author is annoying (who is she to have all these feelings and thoughts and to have an entire book to fill them) and sometimes she writes a sentence or a paragraph that really packs a punch. The style is eminently readable; she is good with language, no doubt. I think perhaps it was too much for me all in one book. If I had just read a portion here and there, I would say "ah, that resonates." So, a 3 star may be overly harsh.
Still, there's something of a narcissistic tone here, unlike some other memoirs. Is a memoir inherently narcissistic? Nah.
Still, there's something of a narcissistic tone here, unlike some other memoirs. Is a memoir inherently narcissistic? Nah.
reflective
slow-paced
I'd read some of the pieces of this book previously and it was a delight to find them all together in this wonderful book that combines travel narratives, writing advice and memoir. The theme.of.bones and the many ossuaries she visits are a powerful through line as she ages and subtly changes over time. The book squarely falls into the kunstlerroman tradition, the coming of age story of an artist. Attenberg takes us from her beginnings as a writer at an east coast college (Johns Hopkins, I think) to her rootless youth crashing on couches as she wrote book after book, worked day job after day job, got fired from one publisher only to end up with a bestseller with her very next book (The Middlesteins, I think.) Here perseverance is exhausting and impressive to read about.
More recently, and not mentioned much except in the acks, Attenberg founded an online community with #1000WordsOfSummer where she herself writes and sends out newsletters and tweets encouraging thousands of followers (including me) to do the same. In this arena, she has an enormous reach and influence as a writer and teacher and example to just keep writing.
This book, with her story and her art intertwined, is a good example of the model she sets: self aware, rueful, curious, dogged, and encouraging. It is like hanging out with a good art friend.
More recently, and not mentioned much except in the acks, Attenberg founded an online community with #1000WordsOfSummer where she herself writes and sends out newsletters and tweets encouraging thousands of followers (including me) to do the same. In this arena, she has an enormous reach and influence as a writer and teacher and example to just keep writing.
This book, with her story and her art intertwined, is a good example of the model she sets: self aware, rueful, curious, dogged, and encouraging. It is like hanging out with a good art friend.
emotional
reflective