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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
The writing in this memoir was stunningly beautiful & I was hooked on her every word!!! This was raw & heartbreaking, but full of hope. I didn’t know who Ariel Levy was & picked this up on a whim, but I’m so glad I did. She had good insights on life during hard situations & I loved how she didn’t hold back! Some parts definitely rubbed me the wrong way but overall I liked a lot of what she had to say & appreciated how honest she was!
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Narrative of a life that is not linear, but is wonderfully spontaneous and full of life. Does not shy away from difficult subjects, instead runs to them and turns them inside out to move through.
A tough but honest read. I wish people wrote more about these sorts of situations.
emotional
funny
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Great book. It examines topics I've often wondered about and can relate to, most importantly the notion that we can't have everything we want even though we (as Western white daughters of the first liberated-second-feminist-wave-generation) are raised to believe we can or at least to aspire to it. The reason why I wanted to read this book was largely because of my struggle with the possibility of motherhood, how, by turns, I believe myself too selfish to be a good mother as well as unable to get to the end of my life without having experienced such a central natural event. I still haven't resolved it, partly because I'm young enough not to have to resolve it just yet--a delay addiction I came face to face with in Levy's book.
I've read criticism that Levy neglects to acknowledge the role white privilege has played in her life. Well, sure, that's a possible reading. Personally I felt she was unflinchingly honest about everything, including the childishness of her attitude towards life up until the point where it all went wrong. She might not use words such as 'entitled' and 'privilege', but I don't think there's any other explanation, and she knows it. I think this book is less about privilege and more about Levy's emotional development, and that's what's most interesting to me. To boil it down to white privilege would oversimplify things, and it would block the exploration of all of the emotional ramifications.
The best example of how this criticism just shuts down everything this book has to offer is a gruesome review by Charlotte Shane published in The New Republic, in which Shane dares to claim that Levy hasn't suffered enough to deserve to write a memoir, that because her gayness and her femaleness and her Jewishness haven't led to awful abuse (as far as we know) she really has no right to speak. The tragedies in her life--divorce, the loss of her child and house--are merely 'common' ones, as statistics support, and are therefore not worthy of mention or exploration either. The fact that Levy mentions them at all is a sign of her white entitlement, because instead she should grovel, instead she should include a white privilege disclaimer at the start of every chapter. Worse, the conclusion is that she shouldn't complain, because she's so privileged. If that's not shutting down a woman's valid perspective, I don't know what is.
Yes, for God's sake, we need intersectional feminism, we need white people to take a step back and see how much of an advantage they have. But does that mean that Ariel Levy cannot write a book about the fact that she lost her baby and her wife? Can she not write about the mistakes she's made? I appreciate Levy's honesty and I think she sufficiently acknowledged her privilege and, as she calls it, her narcissism. Many people would be hard-pressed to be similarly knowledgeable about themselves and their faults. I found her book heart-wrenching, and I found her description of the overwhelming and enduring love she feels for her child to be very illuminating.
I've read criticism that Levy neglects to acknowledge the role white privilege has played in her life. Well, sure, that's a possible reading. Personally I felt she was unflinchingly honest about everything, including the childishness of her attitude towards life up until the point where it all went wrong. She might not use words such as 'entitled' and 'privilege', but I don't think there's any other explanation, and she knows it. I think this book is less about privilege and more about Levy's emotional development, and that's what's most interesting to me. To boil it down to white privilege would oversimplify things, and it would block the exploration of all of the emotional ramifications.
The best example of how this criticism just shuts down everything this book has to offer is a gruesome review by Charlotte Shane published in The New Republic, in which Shane dares to claim that Levy hasn't suffered enough to deserve to write a memoir, that because her gayness and her femaleness and her Jewishness haven't led to awful abuse (as far as we know) she really has no right to speak. The tragedies in her life--divorce, the loss of her child and house--are merely 'common' ones, as statistics support, and are therefore not worthy of mention or exploration either. The fact that Levy mentions them at all is a sign of her white entitlement, because instead she should grovel, instead she should include a white privilege disclaimer at the start of every chapter. Worse, the conclusion is that she shouldn't complain, because she's so privileged. If that's not shutting down a woman's valid perspective, I don't know what is.
Yes, for God's sake, we need intersectional feminism, we need white people to take a step back and see how much of an advantage they have. But does that mean that Ariel Levy cannot write a book about the fact that she lost her baby and her wife? Can she not write about the mistakes she's made? I appreciate Levy's honesty and I think she sufficiently acknowledged her privilege and, as she calls it, her narcissism. Many people would be hard-pressed to be similarly knowledgeable about themselves and their faults. I found her book heart-wrenching, and I found her description of the overwhelming and enduring love she feels for her child to be very illuminating.
Perhaps my favorite book this year. Excellent writing and vocabulary. So interesting and flew by. Thank you Ariel Levy for sharing and for teaching me about life, youth and grief.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage
This is a very good book. It's sad in parts, heartbreaking and overwhelming yet it is a good analysis of what kind of happened in life and why the rules do not apply.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
I kept waiting for this to "click" with me but it never did. It was well-written, and full of emotion, but I never latched on.
The writing style is one I've come across a lot and don't care for. It's well done, but feels very detached. One line in the book is an acquaintance saying "are you the Ariel that everything bad happened to?" And that's how this felt. Not that memoirs must be happy-go-lucky, but it wasn't enjoyable to follow along as her life fell apart.