Reviews

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams

thebookishhawaiian's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

5.0

carolineinthelibrary's review against another edition

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3.0

There were a lot of chapters in this book that were thoughtful and obviously the topic is very meaningful, but it felt like something I’d read in my college writing courses. It’s not necessarily pretentious, but it definitely feels like it was written to be studied.

kimball_hansen's review against another edition

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2.0

I listened to this coming back from visiting Oflion in Lubbock. It was semi-interesting. The narrator got annoying though and after I established that I couldn't wait for it to end.

bristlecone's review against another edition

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4.0

Beautiful and wandering. It was not what I expected, but the unexpected was part of the pleasure.

I felt my own experiences brilliantly reflected in her meditations on a world in which women's efforts to discover and be their sovereign selves is a betrayal of someone else's expectations or desires. It has helped me appreciate the shared struggles of women attempting to navigate that world and the various ways we may do so --- what we hide and what we share

cseibs's review against another edition

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2.0

Some beautiful passages but couldn't shake the overwhelming pretentiousness of it all. It lacked cohesion and read like some self-absorbed aspiring writer's diary. I would have loved a book that actually was about her mother's journals. But this was about the author's self-indulgent self-righteousness.

iris_lu's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

michelle0819's review against another edition

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5.0

I never write book reviews or whatever but I actually LOVE this one and it will be my personal bible <3

jaimcham's review against another edition

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5.0

This blew me over. Not in one big gust but in dozens of little breezes one by one -- that kind of feeling where you're on the floor and don't remember how you got there. It's a braid of many vignettes, punctuated by blank pages and the echoed refrain: "My mother left me her journals, and all her journals were blank." It's about birds and land, mothers and grandmothers, spirit and space, speaking up and staying silent. Somehow in Terry Tempest Williams' hands, all the jagged pieces fit.

jflemingwickham's review

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challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

liketheday's review against another edition

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2.0

I get it. But I didn't like it. I needed more.
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