A review by servemethesky
Molly by Blake Butler

Did not finish book. Stopped at 49%.

I can’t continue with this book. I wanted to know more about Molly. Bandit is one of my all-time favorite memoirs. Blake’s book feels exploitative and icky. It’s a tricky thing to navigate. I firmly believe that “don’t speak ill of the dead” is nonsense. We don’t need to romanticize someone just because they’re gone. But at the same time, just because you had a challenging relationship with them doesn’t give you the right to dig through all of their childhood journals and emails from adulthood and craft them into a very specific narrative you want to tell. It feels manipulative and wrong. Clearly both parties did wrong and their love was very messy. I don’t want any part in it as a reader. Plus, Blake’s prose is verbose and insufferable to read. 

Glad I got this one from the library.