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A review by deecreatenola
Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life by Shauna Niequist
3.0
I am not a natural Shauna Niequist fan.
Although I belong to a church, I'm not particularly religious. I don't look at my life through the lens of God's hand playing a part. Fact of the matter, I'm not entirely sure I even believe in a God.
And yet...there's something about the way Niequist writes about life that compels me, that speaks to something I need.
I'm also not a big fan of audiobooks, but that is my preferred way of receiving her books.
This is the first of her memoirs, I believe, so it's written from the perspective of a thirty-something young woman, married not that long ago, expecting her first child. I'm long since any of those milestones, so this book was not as resonant as Present over Perfect or Bread and Wine. But she does share some universal experiences, like the sudden loss of a loved one or the near-miss of losing someone you care about; wanting what others have that you think is beyond your reach; lamenting a body that doesn't look the way you want it to.
Amidst the essays there is a narrative arc that begins when Niequist leaves her job at a church. It's never clear what exactly her job was or why she leaves, but her departure unmoors her in some way. Because she never explains her reason for leaving, I couldn't ever quite relate to the grief and ennui she goes through. I couldn't quite figure out why it was so painful. I can't help but feel that there's some critical detail that she left out, something that's very personal that she didn't want to share, but that left readers too unaware to relate. Her experiences are really more relevant to someone who's been fired from a job, or laid off, someone whose departure is unplanned and out of her control entirely.
By the end of the memoir, she's made peace with whatever happened. She's a new mother, she's become more accepting of the body that grew and birthed her son, and she's seemingly ready for what comes next.
Having read later books, I know she was ready for what came next, even as she continued to bump up against the questions and challenges of living, like we all do. I think Bittersweet is the missing element in my reading/listening of her memoirs that perhaps links Cold Tangerines to the later memoirs.
Although I belong to a church, I'm not particularly religious. I don't look at my life through the lens of God's hand playing a part. Fact of the matter, I'm not entirely sure I even believe in a God.
And yet...there's something about the way Niequist writes about life that compels me, that speaks to something I need.
I'm also not a big fan of audiobooks, but that is my preferred way of receiving her books.
This is the first of her memoirs, I believe, so it's written from the perspective of a thirty-something young woman, married not that long ago, expecting her first child. I'm long since any of those milestones, so this book was not as resonant as Present over Perfect or Bread and Wine. But she does share some universal experiences, like the sudden loss of a loved one or the near-miss of losing someone you care about; wanting what others have that you think is beyond your reach; lamenting a body that doesn't look the way you want it to.
Amidst the essays there is a narrative arc that begins when Niequist leaves her job at a church. It's never clear what exactly her job was or why she leaves, but her departure unmoors her in some way. Because she never explains her reason for leaving, I couldn't ever quite relate to the grief and ennui she goes through. I couldn't quite figure out why it was so painful. I can't help but feel that there's some critical detail that she left out, something that's very personal that she didn't want to share, but that left readers too unaware to relate. Her experiences are really more relevant to someone who's been fired from a job, or laid off, someone whose departure is unplanned and out of her control entirely.
By the end of the memoir, she's made peace with whatever happened. She's a new mother, she's become more accepting of the body that grew and birthed her son, and she's seemingly ready for what comes next.
Having read later books, I know she was ready for what came next, even as she continued to bump up against the questions and challenges of living, like we all do. I think Bittersweet is the missing element in my reading/listening of her memoirs that perhaps links Cold Tangerines to the later memoirs.