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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
I first tried to read this book when it came out. It was getting lots of critical acclaim, and I love a good memoir. However, I didn’t finish it then. It just didn’t grab me. Lately I’ve gotten more interested in hawks and I decided to read it again. She writes beautifully and the memoir portions were compelling, but she spends about half the book exploring the life and the writing of T.H. White, and I just couldn’t relate much to those sections.
Beautiful and stark. Loved it for the raw descriptions of nature life n death, but struggled a bit with the long passages about her falconry inspo White.
This is a memoir about a woman who is dealing with the sudden loss of her father by training a hawk. The writing is dense and a bit emotionally distant. Other issues I had were that the book included almost too much detail about training the hawk and the comparisons to T.H. White didn't always work for me. Nevertheless, I would recommend it--especially if you have an interest in birds or nature writing.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Mental illness, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Gorgeous writing on a topic I never thought I'd find interesting. The audio version is wonderful as it is read by Helen Macdonald herself.
slow-paced
The book is a memoir that touches on personal grief and falconry. After the sudden loss of her father, Helen Macdonald trains a goshawk named Mabel as a way to cope. She becomes connected with the hawk while struggling with grief. To be honest, the book was just ok… What made me feel eh about it was the large section on T.H. White, an author who wrote The Goshawk. At the end of the day, it’s Macdonald’s book, but it felt like, ugh, here we go talking about this guy. I personally preferred her own experiences.
Overall, the book brings up points on how escaping from grief can be dangerous and the need to face grief rather than hide from it. In the end, she realizes healing comes from reconnecting with people not from isolating. So very meaningful messages in this book but I just didn’t love it.
Overall, the book brings up points on how escaping from grief can be dangerous and the need to face grief rather than hide from it. In the end, she realizes healing comes from reconnecting with people not from isolating. So very meaningful messages in this book but I just didn’t love it.