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A review by unawake0442
Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my unbiased opinions.
There’s something so magical about Alphabetical Diaries. The way Sheila Heti reorganizes 10 years' worth of diary entries creates a sort of found poetry. It’s fascinating hearing the contradictions, changes, and growth laid flat. This is most evident in entries that give us multiple sentences in a row starting with the same person. It’s so funny hearing how intelligent and insightful is only to later hear Heti discover their flaws.
Another favorite part was in the “I just want…” section because of course it’s never all we want. But in the moment it feels so true.
It feels like there’s a wink and a nod in the way which sentence follows which. Of course, it’s a coincidence that the letters lined up just so. But that’s where the magic of Alphabetical Diaries lies. I love that we don’t get the full picture of how everything fits together, but we still get a feel for Heti’s life over several years.
Kate Berlant does a magnificent job narrating as well. It made the prose come alive and helped ground the emotional changes sentence by sentence.
There’s something so magical about Alphabetical Diaries. The way Sheila Heti reorganizes 10 years' worth of diary entries creates a sort of found poetry. It’s fascinating hearing the contradictions, changes, and growth laid flat. This is most evident in entries that give us multiple sentences in a row starting with the same person. It’s so funny hearing how intelligent and insightful is only to later hear Heti discover their flaws.
Another favorite part was in the “I just want…” section because of course it’s never all we want. But in the moment it feels so true.
It feels like there’s a wink and a nod in the way which sentence follows which. Of course, it’s a coincidence that the letters lined up just so. But that’s where the magic of Alphabetical Diaries lies. I love that we don’t get the full picture of how everything fits together, but we still get a feel for Heti’s life over several years.
Kate Berlant does a magnificent job narrating as well. It made the prose come alive and helped ground the emotional changes sentence by sentence.