The Opposite of Loneliness

I struggled to read this; initially I was hopeful, and I really liked the title essay, but I couldn't get past feeling as though what I was reading would have been more fully formed at another time, that it was a book published because she died, not because it was ready. I feel legitimately terrible both for her family, and that I didn't like it as much as I wanted to. I won a copy from the publisher; DNF.

These aren't bad – it's just that it's not new to me; nothing surprised me or felt like it held insight, so it feels boring, which is a sin. A lot of it also felt predictable and I was uninterested in the characters which frequently felt like they were all the same character, even Marina Keegan herself.

I think it's also that my lens is warped and also that this is not Keegan's best representation. It's very much: here's a young woman who was going to shine so bright, but she didn't get a chance so we cobbled together everything she wrote that we could assemble. I graduated from college the same year as Keegan so it was very hard not to make comparisons.

I hate the whole, ‘well the sun is going to explode so everything is pointless'. We've got about five billion years before the sun become unstable, don't use that for an excuse if what you really want to say you think things are pointless or that humanity sucks, there are much more imminent and pressing things.

I was really disappointed in the essay – I dunno it read like a student paper article– about Yalies becoming consultants. Googled it, it's called “Even Artichokes Have Doubts”. It lacked heart, it didn't seem like she knew enough about her subject. I recently watched John Oliver's episode on McKinsey and oof, it's bad.

I refuse to give this less than two stars. I don't think it's fair that she wasn't able to give this the polish it deserved. I think that this collection really suffered a tone problem and the way it was organized. If Keegan herself were to have put published a collection herself, she would have done a better job of sorting, ordering, and introducing the fiction and non-fiction. I also went into this expecting a lot more non-fiction and I had a hard time caring about her fictional characters that seemed to have insecurity as their main character trait.

She had potential

Some of the most memorable essays from this book include the one about the whale, the piece on consultants, and the very last one in the book. Some of theses I wish I had read years ago—especially as a student. There's a great comfort in having someone else use words to describe what you're feeling. The fictional stories are beautiful, emotional, and messy with many memorable moments and lines.

“We are so young. We are so young.”

I've had this on my TBR list for years, years. Of course, as it went viral, I hyped it up in my mind. And then I deflated all that hype before I read it because I've grown more cynical in the past years. I assumed it was just a bestseller because the author died. I don't mean to be cold, really. Her death was a true tragedy, so horrifying, and I cried years ago when I read about. I also cried when I read the beautiful introduction and again when I read The Opposite of Loneliness, the essay. And to that point, I was wrong. I was wrong to judge preemptively.

Marina would have been a great writer of our time. That doesn't mean she would have gotten published or had success, but she was an incredible writer. In the fiction section, I was drawn into every single story. I didn't want to put it down until I found out what happened. Her characters were real people that I could see. And that's a feat with short stories, it's difficult to write a character that real, with a backstory, in a few pages while also telling the story. But she did it.

And in the nonfiction section, Marina somehow managed to make Yale sound interesting enough to hold my attention. Not sorry, Universities are not the place for me. Her musings about life are young and unfinished, but insightful. I wish she had more time, she deserves more time. Of course she does.

Would I recommend this?

Yes, if you enjoy short stories, essays, and realism.

While the writing was fantastic for a 22-year-old, and certainly better than my college creative writing, I felt the essays and stories couldn't escape that college perspective. I think I would have enjoyed and related to this much more had I read it senior year of college vs. 2 years after. Still some powerful moments and lovely sentiments, but would probably only recommend to college students. Still, it's wonderful her parents were able to publish this collection post-humous for her memory and talent to live on.

what a waste that she died so young. not every piece in here is excellent but enough were that I'm sad I won't get the chance to read anything more.

The average from all the stories and essays was a 2.5 but I rounded it down based on my enjoyment of actually reading it.

Fictional pieces were better than non-fictional ones, in my opinion.

While I enjoyed this book, I would disagree with the book's description of the stories and essays as “hope-filled”. Several of her essays are definitely inspiring and she intelligently articulates what so many university aged students feel and struggle with. However, the fiction stories, in my opinion, are not “hope-filled”. They are sad, challenging, thought-provoking, and at times hauntingly beautiful. This was my first delve into short stories and I must say that even with their brevity, Keegan was able to develop the story with such detail, description, and emotion, that I felt I knew the characters as if from a full length novel and was always left wishing they were longer.

I inhaled this book on my commute over the course of just a few days. Many of the essays I loved and was completely engrossed in the story and characters. I preferred her fiction, but a couple of her non-fiction pieces were my favorites overall. I'll definitely be rereading this one.

Although the eponymous essay resonates with a certain valedictorian profundity, the rest of the book felt tacked on, almost as if the author was writing to meet a deadline, and wasn't given enough time to really solidify the ideas she was trying to establish. Which makes obvious sense, as this book was cobbled together from rambling essays and half-realized stories which were gathered up after her death. I am confident that if Marina hadn't died when she did, these stories could have been refined into something truly brilliant. On the other hand, one could argue that without an early death, these stories would have never reached us at all. But would that have been so bad?