Louisa
It only took me so long because I didn't want it to ever end. Thank you Lisa Taddeo for your service. Forever indebted.
Just great ♥️ OR
It's hard to imagine a life like Tara's. This is what makes literature interesting; stories that transport you in faraway places with very different people. But Tara's is real. She said that while she was writing her story, she wasn't sure if she was writing the account of estrangement from her family or her path to education. It was both, because they were mutually exclusive. Her radical Mormon survivalist parents raised her and her brothers in a farm in Idaho without a birth certificate, doctors, or education. Tara was supposed to be homeschooled, but she wasnt. Her father believed in government conspiracies and the End of Days. Her mother treated near-fatal injuries with essential oils. As Tara went from that environment to attending BYU and then earning a PhD from Cambridge, she slowly learned to believe in her own truth, to make her own choices. But it was a very different world her family still lived in, one that she had to give up. This is not one to be missed!
You could read this in one sitting, I took as long as I could because I did not want it to end. All six essays are great. Spellbinding indeed :)
Rereading is another one of the great pleasures of life. As captivating and hilarious as I had found it 8 years ago. Wholeheartedly recommended!
Useful insights: women didn't always cut their hair, origin behind obsession with platinum dye and ginger demonisation.
Beautiful photography that confirmed the following: Rita Hayworth, David Bowie, Lauren Bacall, Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin, Marianne Faithful, Grace Kelly & Rihanna are HOT AF.
Αν εξαιρέσουμε τον τρομερά έντονο σεξισμό και τη νοοτροπία “όλα ήταν καλύτερα όταν ήμουν νέος”, έχει ενδιαφέρον και πολυπλοκότητα, με καλά σκιαγραφημενους χαρακτήρες.
Μετά από 7 χρόνια περίπου που ψάχνω να βρω ποιο ήταν αυτό το βιβλίο που διάβαζα ξανά και ξανά όταν ήμουν 10, ΕΠΙΤΕΛΟΥΣ ΤΑ ΚΑΤΑΦΕΡΑ ΤΟ ΒΡΗΚΑ ΜΠΡΑΒΟ ΜΟΥ.
I love how Korean fiction seems to have gotten me out of my last two stress/anger-induced reading slumps ! Also I for once can say I literally read this book in one afternoon, probably my lowest time to page ratio ever
I've read more than 2/3 of the book, or rather, forced myself to, but I cannot do this anymore, it keeps getting worse, the writing is bland -to put it nicely- and after the 2/3 mark the triteness and artificiality of the dialogue took over and I could not do it anymore. I would not be this upset if this book was not a prize winner that has been received with SO MUCH HYPE. I rarely write disparaging reviews and if I do, they usually stay private, because why spread the negativity? After all, someone spent years on producing a written work and put effort and time and money into it. But there are so many great reads out there that remain unrecognised, unread by most people. They gather dust in used bookstores because they are out of print. Or they have a beautiful cover and are fresh out of the printer's but they are from a small press and barely sell and are forgotten after a few years because they are published in the age of bookstagram and amazon book shopping, a time when most people don't go out to discover random reads or receive recommendations from booksellers or friends, a time when small publishing companies don't sell copies and independent bookshops barely make ends meet if they survive at all. So what I'm trying to say so ineloquently is that I'm seething. THIS of all books won the women's prize a few years ago? It doesn't deserve it. The premise is great but ideas are not enough to constitute a good book; I have many ideas, can someone give me a prize for them please?
Read this for the second time and realised I had judged it quite poorly the first. It's interesting, well-written, holistic in its approach, and very very important because it makes some key yet generally unacknowledged points about depression that can also apply to mental illnesses in general. Apart from putting the reader in his shoes (William Styron was very severely depressed for a period of his later life), he highlights that depression is difficult to cure because of the idiosyncratic nature of the disease, and because the brain is still largely a mystery to science. Also, mental illnesses are illnesses even though they are often treated as behavioural choices of patients unwilling to make the extra effort at life. Though gloomy at times, it ends on a very optimistic note. Highly recommended!
Best reading I've done on the subject! Wonderful clarity of thought and expression, and shockingly relevant. I would describe it as the original #heforshe (published in 1869?!?)
Wow! Not what I was expecting before I started it, nor what I was expecting once I started the book and read the first few chapters, and proof that a short book can be intricate and impactful.
The strength of this book is the sum of brave moments where the author/narrator spits out her honest feelings and opinions on (not) having children. Its principal weakness is its overindulgence (both in quality and quantity of writing) in overthinking spirals and meandering thoughts that follow the same pattern, express the same ideas, and reach the same conclusions, yet repeatedly come up throughout the book.
This is why the book drags and feels bloated. The bluntness on motherhood becomes the side story to this main structure (that itself has no structure) and together they do not form a whole that could be described as a novel, even a loose/stream-of-consciousness one, thought it seems to have been the aim.
Other notes:
- It's classified as a novel. It reads/feels like a memoir.
- You know the author has run out of ideas when they resort to *repeatedly* recounting their dreams. This happens too often in this book. I found myself saying out loud, PLEASE STOP I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR DREAMS THAT MUCH I AM NOT YOUR PSYCHOANALYST
- The HYSTERICAL moment at the end of the book when the author/narrator suddenly ends her overthinking spirals that have plagued most of the book, literally ceases to be tormented by the topic of motherhood, because she started anxiety/depression medication. She then concludes that the medication has solved all her problems, answered her questions, and made life markedly better. Though I applaud her for taking care of her mental health and feeling better as a result, it's HILARIOUS because it renders most of the writing in the preceding 230 pages pointless. In this vain the book's central question should have been antidepressants, their reported efficacy, and what it's like taking or not taking them.
