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hottiereads's review against another edition
Sometimes the girls need an autism diagnosis instead of waxing poetically in a memoir.
vivacissimx's review against another edition
5.0
TW//suicide and suicidal ideation mentions
This took me a long time to digest. It's a series of reflective essays/lessons written by the author as she explored her place as... well, herself in the world, in relationships, as a person who has been suicidal due to depression. There are a lot of musings on depression and suicide interspersed with meta about writing, about writers, about writer's relationships, about writer's relationships with other writers.
I loved this book. There were times when I might have disagreed with her conclusions or thoughts but I never felt tempted to argue with her. In fact, I found it comforting to read the words of a super depressed person who speaks so candidly about suicide as someone whose been depressed and had suicidal ideation. Such freedom to speak! The honesty wrapped it's arms around me.
Fitting, because 'honest' is probably the word I would use to describe the style of prose here. Yiyun Li is not a metaphor guy by any means and tbh that made me ruminate on the role of metaphor in language (obviously it's like... the point). It's written in a way that is stark and warm and full of a human voice. Not to be presumptuous, but it's written in the language of book-readers.
Planning on coming back to this. A lot to mine from this.
This took me a long time to digest. It's a series of reflective essays/lessons written by the author as she explored her place as... well, herself in the world, in relationships, as a person who has been suicidal due to depression. There are a lot of musings on depression and suicide interspersed with meta about writing, about writers, about writer's relationships, about writer's relationships with other writers.
I loved this book. There were times when I might have disagreed with her conclusions or thoughts but I never felt tempted to argue with her. In fact, I found it comforting to read the words of a super depressed person who speaks so candidly about suicide as someone whose been depressed and had suicidal ideation. Such freedom to speak! The honesty wrapped it's arms around me.
Fitting, because 'honest' is probably the word I would use to describe the style of prose here. Yiyun Li is not a metaphor guy by any means and tbh that made me ruminate on the role of metaphor in language (obviously it's like... the point). It's written in a way that is stark and warm and full of a human voice. Not to be presumptuous, but it's written in the language of book-readers.
Planning on coming back to this. A lot to mine from this.
foggy_rosamund's review against another edition
4.0
Struggling with suicidal depression, Yiyun Li writes about literature, and how, while it does not help her, it sustains her. Like Elizabeth Barrett Browning she feels "the world of books is still the world." Her writing is sophisticated, philosophical, and sometimes hard to digest. She writes about despair dispassionately and with perhaps too little empathy. But I found this book very rewarding: it is an exploration of the unsayable, of the places literature cannot reach. Yiyun Li has a unique perspective on depression, and her own autobiographical or semi-autobiographical insights are thought-provoking. The blurb describes this book as "uplifting", which is not true: Li is factual and ambivalent, and this book does not try to be optimistic. But for all that I found it very helpful -- perhaps because it is so rare to find a description of depression that feels authentic and escapes the usual mould of Despair + Therapy = Recovery. This book is unafraid to challenge the reader and to face complexity.
deborahrosegreen's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.0
I deeply related to various sections, especially near the beginning, although I have to say that as it went on I felt as though the author was really overthinking certain concepts to the point where it felt uncomfortable. Perhaps that was the point. After that I didn’t enjoy it, except the section about language which I found both engaging and inspiring. Overall, I agree with the author that the book was an indulgence on her part because, with a lot of respect, I can’t think of any other reason why she would write it. It spun me in circles and flipped me upside down. Having finished, I feel dizzy rather than enlightened.
gerdash's review against another edition
sad
slow-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Suicide attempt and Suicide