A review by ondrobondro
Imagine Wanting Only This by Kristen Radtke

2.0

veered between brilliant and infuriating. there's plenty of great reflections here on illness and impermanence, and some beautiful descriptions of historical events - but it veers a lot between that and self indulgence. while that's inescapably part of the memoir form for sure, Radtke takes it to new levels of selfishness. by far the most egregious was her stealing photos from an abandoned cathedral (that unbeknownst to her was a memorial for a Seth Thomas, local photographer), discovering that it was a memorial, neglecting to return the photos, and then taking them across Europe and losing them. For those photographs to then play such a tangential role in the book, and for her to handwave away having not returned them - it's not even self indulgent, it's grotesquely self absorbed.

Thomas's mother has written about the book here and having read that it has tarnished my opinion of the book considerably. It's disappointing because there's a lot to like here visually and textually, but Radtke's self absorption is deeply felt.