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A review by rachd24
The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan
4.0
Check out my full review here: https://confessionsofabookgeek.com/2016/09/19/review-the-opposite-of-loneliness/
I was drawn to this book because of the title – call me a millennial, but it SPOKE to me. When I discovered that the author was only 22, and that she tragically died just 5 days after graduating, I had to know what was so special about her writing. Not only that, but a part of me felt I almost had to pay my respects to her in some way by acknowledging her work.
This book presents a selection of Marina’s essays, as well as some fictional short stories. I sway more towards enjoying her non-fiction, but overall I felt this was a very insightful, often raw, and well written collection of work. The girl had talent, and lots of it. I think she would have had a great career ahead of her. It’s impossible to read this book without a lingering sense of sadness throughout – to hear Marina’s distinct voice in her work, and know that there will never be any more of it, that we will never see her writing progress – it was both depressing, and yet at times oddly uplifting. Her life being cut short is a stark reminder to us all that tomorrow is not guaranteed.
Marina writes with a certain honesty, and manages to capture, for me, the feelings of a 20-something in today’s world. It can be a confusing, frightening, and tiresome world, as much as it can be overwhelming, fun, an frivolous. Interestingly, Marina doesn’t write how I’d imagined her to – based on her image on the cover, and the college she attended, I had a stereotypical idea of how she would write, and what she would write about. It was very interesting to me that she was much more gritty than I expected.
I was drawn to this book because of the title – call me a millennial, but it SPOKE to me. When I discovered that the author was only 22, and that she tragically died just 5 days after graduating, I had to know what was so special about her writing. Not only that, but a part of me felt I almost had to pay my respects to her in some way by acknowledging her work.
This book presents a selection of Marina’s essays, as well as some fictional short stories. I sway more towards enjoying her non-fiction, but overall I felt this was a very insightful, often raw, and well written collection of work. The girl had talent, and lots of it. I think she would have had a great career ahead of her. It’s impossible to read this book without a lingering sense of sadness throughout – to hear Marina’s distinct voice in her work, and know that there will never be any more of it, that we will never see her writing progress – it was both depressing, and yet at times oddly uplifting. Her life being cut short is a stark reminder to us all that tomorrow is not guaranteed.
Marina writes with a certain honesty, and manages to capture, for me, the feelings of a 20-something in today’s world. It can be a confusing, frightening, and tiresome world, as much as it can be overwhelming, fun, an frivolous. Interestingly, Marina doesn’t write how I’d imagined her to – based on her image on the cover, and the college she attended, I had a stereotypical idea of how she would write, and what she would write about. It was very interesting to me that she was much more gritty than I expected.