The Year of Magical Thinking
Ratings197
Average rating4
Didion navigates grief with a delicate balance, striving for emotional catharsis while maintaining journalistic integrity.
Another brilliant work by Joan Didion. I feel incredibly fortunate to have discovered her writing this year. Her lyrical prose captivates me. This book resonates deeply with anyone who has ever imagined the loss of a loved one—or experienced it firsthand. It's a poignant exploration of grief that feels both personal and universal.
Picked up the audiobook as I wanted to read Didion's works for a while now. It's a good memoir of her difficult time when she lost her husband and her daughter was in an induced coma. I respect her telling the story but I guess I kind of expected more depth. It felt very repetitive at times and the medical jargon and terminologies could have been less.
Towards the end chapters, the book managed to get better and focus more on her feelings and emotions during this period of grief but it was too late till then to strike a chord with the reader in me.
Maybe I'll pick up some of her other works.
I heard many many things about this book, all good things, and when I finally found the time to pick it up I was honestly surprised by how short it was! But, it lacked no amount of poignancy. To be honest, there were sections while reading where my mind did wander here or there but not due to a lack of interest, just due to how Joan's writing style was. For a moment we would be caught on her husband John, then we were knee-deep in details about heart conditions she read up about, then we were whisked to a memory she had with John or her daughter Quntana. It wasn't my lack of interest, it was just the way she wrote so true to herself and how she was feeling and how one thought reminded her of another and another, and that was what really stuck out to me about this book. It was lovely to hear how connected she felt to her husband and daughter so truly, but all the more tragic when considering both of them might not have known the depths of this connection. I'm not sure if I'll ever desire to read this again, but I don't think I'll forget the emotions Joan dredged up and shared that she felt.
“Marriage is memory, marriage is time. Marriage is not only time: it is also, parodoxically, the denial of time”
Probably the most real account of grieving the sudden loss of a loved one that I have ever read.
Yeah great idea, reading a play about grief when I am griefing. At least I found solace, or a mirror in the words.
3.5 Joan Didion is a spectacular writer. I did find the exploration of grief interesting, complex, and nuanced. I found her tendency to focus on getting information and taking control in moments of crisis relatable. However, for a book focused on so many emotionally charged topics, this book made me feel nothing. I cannot put my finger on why this is, but it did not tug on the heartstrings in the way I wanted it to. If I had to guess, this same tendency to rationalize emotional situations to prevent yourself from feeling the full extent of the pain had the same effect on me, as a reader. It was good, but it wasn't great.
So Insightful. Reading The Year of Magical Thinking was like being inside Joan Didion's heart and mind at the same time. So extraordinarily poignant. The prose is so eloquent. Every single paragraph is equivalent to a punch in the best possible way. I can already see myself reading this again and again.
Hmmm maybe I need to read it but the audiobook was not quite appealing or attention getting so DNF at 43% for now.
A totally repetitive grief-inducing book with a lot of factual and superfluous data to support its own irrational way of thinking, that is totally irrationally rational.
Ah, how could one name a book like this. First or two chapters were fine, standard courses to introduce the event of the writer's husband's death and were actually pretty captivating (and that's why I bought the book).
And the rest were...insufferable.
That self-absorbance was not quite the big reason. More of that was due to it's repetitive account of the events. Grandma's whines, again insufferable to me. Or let's assume I'm just a heartless person, anyway.
Alright, might do this book some justice. It would be better if Joan wrote the entire book wholly focused on her own writing and her personal experience, like honestly do I really need to know the causes of heart attack when I'm a biology student? Thank you, next.
Anyway, I might just drop it in the darkest corner of my home. You might rest well there.
everything went over my head but i did feel really sad about her husband's death and her daughter's illness
Beautiful portrait of such a terrible period in Didion's life. She was obviously writing from such a personal place of pain and growth and Didion captured it in all its nuance. Very difficult to read for long periods.
6/10
I have (very fortunately) never lost someone close to me so it was a little difficult to relate to Didion. I also felt there was way too much of medical jargon and locations specific to Cali and NY, which meant nothing to me.
Nonetheless, I could tell that she's a great writer and I'm looking forward to reading her other work. This just wasn't the best first book to read.
This book was my first of Didion and introduced me to her work. This book is one of the best I have read about grief, loss, and the mental and physical toll it takes on you. Didion is raw, and real in this book, and uses beautiful metaphors and analogies to describe this year of her life, and subsequently the impact on the rest of her life.
I enjoyed reading this book, not only because of the story itself but also due to its lyricism. It's an exceptionally well-written exploration of the mind of an individual going through tragic events.
