You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
3 1/2 stars. This is well-written and thought-provoking in some instances, but I felt little emotion during my reading because I wasn't keen on the narrator and I couldn't relate to so many of her choices. I appreciate the author's honesty but I think she had yet to find her truth in the writing of this. Maybe she has by now...
I'm having a hard time reviewing this one. There are some really exceptional things about it and some not-so-exceptional things.
Spoilers below...
First off, this is a memoir of loss - of a baby, a spouse, a home, but most of all control. Levy has prided herself on her "competent self", the part of her that takes over in times of crisis. I think we all have one of those residing in us and it was interesting to hear her verbalization of that the role it's played in her life. Relatedly, though, there's the assertion that nothing bad ever happens to her - she's had a few close calls and hit the rumble strips on the interstate a few times, but has always been able to pull it back before going in the ditch. Her critical flaw, though, is attributing this to herself and viewing it as being within her control. SHE pulled things back from the edge; SHE caused it to all be ok. There also seems to be an odd conflation of this perspective and Levy's views on feminism that I don't entirely agree with.
When things do fall apart - and they do so epically and heartbreakingly for Levy, all at once and in her 38th year - she sees that sometimes things are beyond your control. And that sometimes despite all our best efforts, life doesn't care what we want or need and gives us the worst parts of the universe to sit with and deal with.
Her miscarriage at 5 months in Mongolia was horrific. I listened to the audiobook (which I highly recommend as Levy narrates it) and hearing her voice recount that day was really difficult to listen to. I had to stop and start it several times because that's something no one should ever have to go through. She gets back from Mongolia though and her wife's addiction with alcohol comes to a head as she's sent to rehab. They had to sell their house to pay for treatment. And if that's not more than anyone can be able to handle, I don't know what is. At times, I felt like I was reading her personal journal as she worked through these issues with the only tools that are probably always there for her - her words.
All the trauma of her life this book focuses on makes it really hard to rate this book objectively. I feel like any criticisms I have are also a personal commentary on what she's been through. Some reviews on here are harsh about her unexamined privilege, and not unfairly so. I agree that this exists in her, likely from being at a station of life where things did tend to work out ok for her. But I also can't help think of attribution bias and how we all tend to attribute our successes to internal factors (and our failures to external factors). I also think the shock of all these really hard life events occurring back to back to back does lend one a feeling of a life that has veered so far from what she had ever imagined.
Spoilers below...
First off, this is a memoir of loss - of a baby, a spouse, a home, but most of all control. Levy has prided herself on her "competent self", the part of her that takes over in times of crisis. I think we all have one of those residing in us and it was interesting to hear her verbalization of that the role it's played in her life. Relatedly, though, there's the assertion that nothing bad ever happens to her - she's had a few close calls and hit the rumble strips on the interstate a few times, but has always been able to pull it back before going in the ditch. Her critical flaw, though, is attributing this to herself and viewing it as being within her control. SHE pulled things back from the edge; SHE caused it to all be ok. There also seems to be an odd conflation of this perspective and Levy's views on feminism that I don't entirely agree with.
When things do fall apart - and they do so epically and heartbreakingly for Levy, all at once and in her 38th year - she sees that sometimes things are beyond your control. And that sometimes despite all our best efforts, life doesn't care what we want or need and gives us the worst parts of the universe to sit with and deal with.
Her miscarriage at 5 months in Mongolia was horrific. I listened to the audiobook (which I highly recommend as Levy narrates it) and hearing her voice recount that day was really difficult to listen to. I had to stop and start it several times because that's something no one should ever have to go through. She gets back from Mongolia though and her wife's addiction with alcohol comes to a head as she's sent to rehab. They had to sell their house to pay for treatment. And if that's not more than anyone can be able to handle, I don't know what is. At times, I felt like I was reading her personal journal as she worked through these issues with the only tools that are probably always there for her - her words.
All the trauma of her life this book focuses on makes it really hard to rate this book objectively. I feel like any criticisms I have are also a personal commentary on what she's been through. Some reviews on here are harsh about her unexamined privilege, and not unfairly so. I agree that this exists in her, likely from being at a station of life where things did tend to work out ok for her. But I also can't help think of attribution bias and how we all tend to attribute our successes to internal factors (and our failures to external factors). I also think the shock of all these really hard life events occurring back to back to back does lend one a feeling of a life that has veered so far from what she had ever imagined.
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
This book so well encapsulates the feeling of life not going according to plan. I wish there were more like it so we don't feel like such failures when our life is not like a story.
Devastating but beautifully written memoir
song: orange juice by noah kahan
song: orange juice by noah kahan
3
This one was tough to rate. The memoir is well-written, but I struggled with the author’s tone.
This one was tough to rate. The memoir is well-written, but I struggled with the author’s tone.
Heel goed geschreven, grappig en ook vaak rauw en confronterend - haar ervaringen raakten me en de boodschap van verlies accepteren en hoop houden, blijft me bij.
An intimate view into the author's mind, but not exactly what I expected.
I inhaled this book in two sittings. Levy's writing is exquisite; she uses the turn of a sentence and precise vocabulary to draw you into her story.
"Until recently, I lived in a world where lost things could always be replaced. But it has been made overwhelmingly clear to me now that anything you think is yours by right can vanish, and what you can do about that is nothing at all. The future I thought I was meticulously crafting for years has disappeared, and with it have gone my ideas about the kind of life I'd imagined I was due. People have been telling me since I was a little girl that I was too fervent, too forceful, too much. I thought I had harnessed the power of my own strength and greed and love in a life that could contain it. But it has exploded."
"Until recently, I lived in a world where lost things could always be replaced. But it has been made overwhelmingly clear to me now that anything you think is yours by right can vanish, and what you can do about that is nothing at all. The future I thought I was meticulously crafting for years has disappeared, and with it have gone my ideas about the kind of life I'd imagined I was due. People have been telling me since I was a little girl that I was too fervent, too forceful, too much. I thought I had harnessed the power of my own strength and greed and love in a life that could contain it. But it has exploded."