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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
I am finding this hard to review. I liked it but I think I wanted more. This book is poetic yet blunt.
Emotional yet informative. Fast paced in parts, and rambling in others. All of these things are good things, and all of them can be bad. It’s such a strange book that I don’t know if I would recommend it to people or not. I enjoyed reading it, I wouldn’t change my mind on reading it. I just don’t know where it has left me. It almost feels like the bullet pointed journal of a student of tears, half fact and half memoire.
As a side note, this book is one that comes up when you google books on grief. As someone grieving a suicide, I would not recommend this as a comforting book to someone in the early stages of grief. I didn’t find it comforting for that.
Emotional yet informative. Fast paced in parts, and rambling in others. All of these things are good things, and all of them can be bad. It’s such a strange book that I don’t know if I would recommend it to people or not. I enjoyed reading it, I wouldn’t change my mind on reading it. I just don’t know where it has left me. It almost feels like the bullet pointed journal of a student of tears, half fact and half memoire.
As a side note, this book is one that comes up when you google books on grief. As someone grieving a suicide, I would not recommend this as a comforting book to someone in the early stages of grief. I didn’t find it comforting for that.
A few things:
1. This book is 100% about crying so if for some reason you're like, maybe it's not that much about crying, despite the title, nope. It's about crying.
2. It's very beautiful. It is very much an essay written by a poet. Every time I encounter this lyrical mode, where each paragraph is like a poem in it of itself, yet braids and resonates with the ones around it, I'm like, really Amie, this can't be that hard to do! You can write an essay! But then I get distracted and like, nah, let's just write a bunch of random poems and never revise them.
3. This is a very odd review. I really liked this book! I am just jealous of poets who can actually hunker down and write essays. Can I blame the internet for ruining my brain for this kind of sustained attention?
1. This book is 100% about crying so if for some reason you're like, maybe it's not that much about crying, despite the title, nope. It's about crying.
2. It's very beautiful. It is very much an essay written by a poet. Every time I encounter this lyrical mode, where each paragraph is like a poem in it of itself, yet braids and resonates with the ones around it, I'm like, really Amie, this can't be that hard to do! You can write an essay! But then I get distracted and like, nah, let's just write a bunch of random poems and never revise them.
3. This is a very odd review. I really liked this book! I am just jealous of poets who can actually hunker down and write essays. Can I blame the internet for ruining my brain for this kind of sustained attention?
The Crying Book is intensely meta and layered in every direction. I love nothing more than the melding of the scientific and the literary, and with this exploration of tears, Heather Christle creates just that. In short bursts that are compulsively readable, she breaks down the endlessly frustrating and artificial wall between "the academic" and "the feminine," encouraging a discomfort with her emotionality (and then encouraging a critique of that discomfort). A new go-to recommendation for anyone questioning their own or another's relationship to sadness.
The quotes I found from the book may surpass the book itself. I did cry—but that’s an easy feat.
Here’s the thing. If you love Mary Rueffle, Maggie Nelson and Samantha Hunts unwritten book, you will definitely enjoy the style of this book. Now, did it change my life like the aforementioned authors have? Not quite, still a really fun read and would recommend if you are a fan of that intimate essay format :)
emotional
fast-paced
An introspective memoir that delves deep into crying: what it is, why we do it, and notable references. It makes for a sort of crying compendium that is both intriguing and utterly emotional.
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Suicide, Grief
beautiful prose and eloquent writing style. i enjoyed the structure of the book and felt like it connected very well