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rachthecreator's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Grief, Blood, Chronic illness, and Medical content
anoushka05's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Medical content, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, Grief, and Medical trauma
clarabooksit's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
2.25
I’ve been really into reading books on grief and loss, especially memoirs, and the number one recommended book on all the lists is THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING by Joan Didion. So, I finally read it.
It wasn’t for me.
To be fair, I was avoiding it less because of its popularity but because I don’t like Didion’s perspective. I haven’t read any of her fiction but I’ve read a lot of her cultural criticism essays on literature and film, and I’ve always found her elitist and out-of-touch. This book wasn’t the exception.
While I respect her intellect and her writing is undeniably smart, her complete lack of awareness, let alone acknowledgement, of her overwhelming privilege—white, wealthy, tastemaker for the cultural elite—is grating, frustrating and sometimes offensive. Even in a book about the year following the sudden and tragic death of her husband, she can’t help but name drop and throw around her wealthy lifestyle, never once reflecting on her privilege. It makes her very difficult to relate to.
I wanted to like this book. The way it’s written brilliantly reflects the way grief alters the way we think and how memory can fail us. There were moments that hit me in the gut with their poignancy. And it feels unfair to judge how someone expresses their grief, but overall this didn’t work for me.
Memoirs I’d recommend instead: A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung, Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey, and Crying In H Mart by Michelle Zauner.
It wasn’t for me.
To be fair, I was avoiding it less because of its popularity but because I don’t like Didion’s perspective. I haven’t read any of her fiction but I’ve read a lot of her cultural criticism essays on literature and film, and I’ve always found her elitist and out-of-touch. This book wasn’t the exception.
While I respect her intellect and her writing is undeniably smart, her complete lack of awareness, let alone acknowledgement, of her overwhelming privilege—white, wealthy, tastemaker for the cultural elite—is grating, frustrating and sometimes offensive. Even in a book about the year following the sudden and tragic death of her husband, she can’t help but name drop and throw around her wealthy lifestyle, never once reflecting on her privilege. It makes her very difficult to relate to.
I wanted to like this book. The way it’s written brilliantly reflects the way grief alters the way we think and how memory can fail us. There were moments that hit me in the gut with their poignancy. And it feels unfair to judge how someone expresses their grief, but overall this didn’t work for me.
Memoirs I’d recommend instead: A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung, Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey, and Crying In H Mart by Michelle Zauner.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Suicide
nenya's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.75
While this book is absolutely beautifully written (honestly, Didion is a goddess) and I really did like the non chronological way it was laid out, it sometimes (partially) felt a bit boring. However I do realize that these parts were important to her and as such absolutely need to be read.
Didion gives an honest and thought provoking insight into a grieving person‘s mind and struggles while also delivering some insanely impactful quotes.
Didion gives an honest and thought provoking insight into a grieving person‘s mind and struggles while also delivering some insanely impactful quotes.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Medical content, Abandonment, Medical trauma, and Death
meemawreads's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
2.0
Woof, y'all. I picked this one up because it was available and Joan Didion is someone whose name I'd heard enough that her books were always on my list to try. I think she's an excellent writer, her memory for detail is frankly intimidating. In comparing my own memory I thought, "Do I have dementia? At 35?" I still want to give some of her fiction a go, but man is her nonfiction not for me!
This book is about the year after Didion's husband dies in front of her of a massive heart attack while their adult daughter is in the ICU. Hard stuff, those with medical trauma and grief sensitivities take care. I don't think this is a bad book, it's just written from such an extreme point of unexamined privilege that I couldn't relate. She attempts to describe something as human as the denial of grief, the emptiness of mourning a person who your instincts still reach out for multiple times a day. There are profound sentences throughout. BUT she uses her entirely unrelatable life circumstances to describe them: which of their houses they were in for this memory, flying to Paris or Honolulu or Milan in that memory, calling their connections at the NY and LA Times for his obituary. This was written in 2005, before conversation about wealth inequality and privilege was common, so I'm not calling Didion a bad feminist for writing honestly about her circumstances... I just can't connect. I'll never have memories full of coast-hopping on private planes, multiple homes, jetting to Hawaii to write a film. The piles of unrelatable anecdotes water down the universality of her grief message. Very out of touch. Two taters 🥔🥔/🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔
This book is about the year after Didion's husband dies in front of her of a massive heart attack while their adult daughter is in the ICU. Hard stuff, those with medical trauma and grief sensitivities take care. I don't think this is a bad book, it's just written from such an extreme point of unexamined privilege that I couldn't relate. She attempts to describe something as human as the denial of grief, the emptiness of mourning a person who your instincts still reach out for multiple times a day. There are profound sentences throughout. BUT she uses her entirely unrelatable life circumstances to describe them: which of their houses they were in for this memory, flying to Paris or Honolulu or Milan in that memory, calling their connections at the NY and LA Times for his obituary. This was written in 2005, before conversation about wealth inequality and privilege was common, so I'm not calling Didion a bad feminist for writing honestly about her circumstances... I just can't connect. I'll never have memories full of coast-hopping on private planes, multiple homes, jetting to Hawaii to write a film. The piles of unrelatable anecdotes water down the universality of her grief message. Very out of touch. Two taters 🥔🥔/🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma
Moderate: Grief
alexisgarcia's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.5
this was such an interesting book due to the intense feelings of grief paired with feeling numb.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Chronic illness, Medical content, Death, Grief, Blood, and Medical trauma
carolinemwatson's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
2.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Medical content, and Medical trauma
drrayeraye's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Medical trauma, and Medical content
thequeenofsheba3's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Medical content
Moderate: Medical trauma and Death of parent
pizzapie68's review against another edition
I read this book to help me through the death of a loved one. Comparing experiences only made me angry. Would not suggest this book to someone who is grieving. But grief is different for everyone so someone else may find it helpful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Death, and Medical trauma