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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
Jeanette Winterson's memoir covers the same ground as Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, replacing its softer edges with harsh reality, and then moves beyond it. The choice to skip approximately half of her life (and the majority of her professional career) is probably questionable, but if the book is viewed as one woman's coming to terms with both her adoption and her own perceived deficiencies in the giving of love, it's successful.
Writing one's memoir at 52 means that the story is far from over: this ends, then follows its conclusion with a coda suggesting that anything could change in Winterson's life at any time. Nothing is absolute - but if we've seen the beginning and the end (so far) of Winterson's story, would we really want to come back to read the middle?
Writing one's memoir at 52 means that the story is far from over: this ends, then follows its conclusion with a coda suggesting that anything could change in Winterson's life at any time. Nothing is absolute - but if we've seen the beginning and the end (so far) of Winterson's story, would we really want to come back to read the middle?
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Powerful, interesting and just plain painful sometimes. This book made me stop and just be for 230 pages.
This is certainly a story that grabs your attention and hangs on tightly. That being said, I didn't love many of the things Jeanette billed as thoughts or opinions of "all" adopted children.
Wow... Now I want to read the rest of Winterson's oeuvre.
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
I think maybe I should have read some of Jeannette Winterson’s fiction before this but I really loved this quote:
“Listen, we are human beings. Listen, we are inclined to love. Love is there, but we need to be taught how. We want to stand upright, we want to walk, but someone needs to hold our hand and balance us a bit, and guide us a bit, and scoop us up when we fall.
Listen, we fall. Love is there but we have to learn it - and its shapes and its possibilities. I l taught myself to stand on my own two feet, but I could not teach myself how to love.”
“Listen, we are human beings. Listen, we are inclined to love. Love is there, but we need to be taught how. We want to stand upright, we want to walk, but someone needs to hold our hand and balance us a bit, and guide us a bit, and scoop us up when we fall.
Listen, we fall. Love is there but we have to learn it - and its shapes and its possibilities. I l taught myself to stand on my own two feet, but I could not teach myself how to love.”
4.5/5 oh... oh. i recommend this so highly. the way jeanette winterson writes about love, and about living, and about learning love and life... perfectly advertised by the quote on the cover: "brave, funny, heartbreaking."