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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
After following Attenberg on Instagram while she was writing this one, I knew I wanted to check it out. It is clear that writing the book was very therapeutic for her.
hopeful
reflective
This book inspired me more as a writer — both in its content and style — than anything has in a really long time.
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I picked this up after hearing Attenberg read a passage at the Southern Festival of Books. This memoir, her first stab at nonfiction, is about becoming a woman, finding, and subsequently, loving herself, and finally figuring out this whole writing gig. Some might be turned off by the stream-of-consciousness nature, but I thought it worked well here.
This is soooo good - part travelogue, part memoir, part craft of writing advice book, but all with Jami's wit and honesty and vulnerability. Jami's lived a fascinating, somewhat nomadic life, and is here to tell you about her lessons learned. How do we live a creative life when life itself is often so trying?
I dipped in and out of this, reading a little bit at a time when I needed some inspiration as I worked on a story, and it was just the thing.
I dipped in and out of this, reading a little bit at a time when I needed some inspiration as I worked on a story, and it was just the thing.
Reading this made me physically relax. There's something very comforting to me about sinking into the story of someone's creative life. I've enjoyed Attenberg's fiction in the past, and now I feel I understand her as a person as well. The memoir-in-essays structure was inspiring, too. Each piece can stand on its own, but they add up to something richer.
“I grow accustomed to seeing myself in a box on my cell phone. Did I live in the box? I peered closely. Is the box where my real life was?“
Based on a lot of other reviews, it's obvious that a disturbing (but not surprising) number of people are really bothered by a talented woman thinking her life - her artistic practice, her childhood, her friends, her professional path, her relationship to place - is worth documenting. Criticizing a memoir for being "solipsistic" is...really something. Anyway, this book is beautiful, absorbing, and gorgeously written, and it's refreshing to read about a person fully and unapologetically leading an unconventional life, engaging with darkness while living in the light.