Aamna
3.5 / audiobook
For all the issues I have with this book I hold the editor responsible. The first few chapters about Anna's child acting career and her family are rather drab. The self deprecating humour feels forced or overdone. But as teenager Anna becomes a 20 something Anna things get more engaging. She gets real about stuff - like how she was broke when she got her oscar nomination for Up in the Air, how her outlook towards multiple things has evolved. I liked that.
Note on the audiobook - Anna talks really fast so actually had to listen at 0.8x for a bit to adjust my brain.
[Audiobook read by Sean Barrett]
Loved the wit and chuckle-inducing turns of phrase. Couldn't stop listening to it.
Also better appreciate the TV series that did a good job of adapting the book right while still being true to it (special appreciation for the casting director). To be fair, Herron wrote most of it for them — the dialogues remain unchanged.
Finished this book over a month ago but delayed the update because I felt so many feelings and didn't quite know how to write a ‘review'. Have decided to pay homage with a blogpost. Here's hoping I will actually get around to it.
But seriously, just read it. And then read it again. There's too much in here that simply can't be internalised in one reading.
The content of the book wasn't absolutely new to me. I discovered the term “Emotional Abuse” when I was 22 and was shocked and relieved to finally have a vocabulary to describe the wide range of behaviours I had encountered. (found it here if you're interested - http://eqi.org/eabuse1.htm)
Words have power. They are greater than the sum of what they stand for - they can capture and convey a collection of experiences and at the same time inspire the understanding of something deeper, something far more profound, so that you can begin to heal (if required).
And by giving us this vocabulary, Lindsay is doing God's work (partly because, let's face it, the entity doesn't exist).
Can we even begin to understand something until we know what to call it?
If you can name it, you can tame it. So I guess now I'm just gonna spend the rest of my life taming it.
Thank you Lindsay. I hope something truly fantastic happens to you today.
Kudos for the obsession but not a fan of the mystique the book ends up assigning post-facto to an asshole. I am also troubled and unimpressed by the confidence the various people involved have in their many recollections. There's enough research to prove how memory can be the most unreliable narrator. It's tempting but let's not kid ourselves, yeah?
