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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
While I'm not sure I'd be friends with Ariel in real life, I loved her memoir, mostly for its raw, honest, beautiful writing and structure. It's not chronological; it's almost a collection of essays, as she explains how she lost her baby (a graphic miscarriage), her wife and her house almost all at once. It's a memoir of grief and shock, but also an affair. I think the latter part is why a lot of people's reviews declare they don't like her, and she definitely has issues she needed (needs) to resolve, but what human is perfect? And do we really want to read a memoir of a put-together, boring life? There are also a lot of reviews that are unforgiving because she didn't examine her white privilege. Is that a requirement of memoirs nowadays? Can she write about her own experiences without doing the academic work of looking at it from all of society and how society might view her in 2018? A lot of people don't seem to think so.
Hard to criticize the body of a memoir when the author admits to narcissism up front. I'm with the chorus of other reviewers who roll their eyes at Levy's blaming feminism for disappointments that come from making poor judgements throughout a privileged life. The objectively powerful passage that I don't take issue with describes the phenomenally traumatic miscarriage of her son; some reviews make that event sound like a chemical pregnancy, and it was decidedly not. Unfortunately the miscarriage is kind of a big bump in the road of her narrative. The story has the potential to explore notions of vitality and viability in life, relationships, and career, but Levy's fixation on entitlement (promise) and disappointment falls short.
This isn’t a book I would typically pick up or be drawn to. But in an effort to read “outside my box” I picked it up on a whim. An interesting memoir of someone who, on paper is very different from me. Our lives couldn’t be more different as a Mormon stay-at-Home-Mom of conservative upbringing; however, there were numerous points brought up that resonated profoundly to me. This taught, or reminded me, that even though we are all different, our struggles are generally and fundamentally the same. Her writing style was skilled and made me long to write in such a connecting way, which results in 4 stars. As far as my interest in the grit of her story....I would have more likely given that 3 stars.
3.5, mid-point I wasn't sure if I liked it, was thinking it would be a 2 star. But she's a good writer and the story is compelling and honest.
Smart, well written. Definitely a stream of consciousness memoir but I liked that it followed a timeline and theme. Interesting life, very cool career.
Levy’s prose is simply stunning, and she is masterful at telling a story and sharing her heartbreak. I felt the last quarter of the memoir was especially gut-wrenching and moving.
I was afraid to read this because of the excellent essay "thanksgiving in Mongolia," but I'm glad I did.
This was a much harder book to read than I expected. Ariel captured so much of what it means to live, love and to have lost. A very raw and moving memoir.
This book isn't quite what I was expecting. (I'm not sure the marketing for this memoir did it any favors.) That said, I ended up enjoying this book more than I thought I would. Levy is a wonderful writer and her story is heartbreaking. A beautiful read.