A review by travisclau
The Empathy Exams: Essays by Leslie Jamison

4.0

A strong, wide-ranging set of essays. Jamison has such a distinctive voice that carries through the pieces that traverse near and far geographically, emotionally. We see empathy and its demands, the many faces of feeling. Some pieces were crushing to read, and they are models for nonfiction essays. Yet what took away from the volume was a sense that many of the essays could have been abbreviated. Some read like manifestos (especially the defense of sentimentality and the saccharine), some read like prolonged journal entries. Jamison has some powerful one-liners, but sometimes she can be excessive with her prose, which does not always benefit the essay's power. Sometimes, her playing with the essay form lets her get away with it, but some essays worked better than others.