Rating someone’s life story is hard, so I’m rating this based on clarity and organization. I found the author’s reflection to be compelling in a number of places, especially as someone who shares some overlapping experiences. The questions she asks about loving someone whose values and actions are or have been at odds with your beliefs are worth considering.
I’m not entirely sure who this book is for. It’s outside my usual reading scope, but I like trying new things, and the first chapter made it clear that I have some things in common with the author. But I’m not sure who I would recommend it to, as a large focus of the book is dedicated to the question of the author’s ethos and morality, and gradually bending it for the sake of…? Love, perhaps, or comfort. There’s something polished and glossy about the prose, even when she’s getting into the messier bits of her experience, that made me feel like I was being held at arm’s length. At the same time, there’d a lot of stuff that would be mentioned and then set aside. For example, she was in a terrible accident with serious physical repercussions, but then it’s never mentioned it again. A couple chapters end on cliffhangers of a sort that don’t really fit the tone.
The structure just felt a little wonky to me, and it threw the pacing off. I found her narrative engaging while I was reading it, but I’m not sure what to take away with me. This is a problem I often have with memoirs, where I get the sense that the author included everything that felt significant to them without thinking about their story as a narrative structure. I’m sure it’s hard to try to boil your life down to a thesis statement, but the pat ending in particular left me scratching my head.
Still, learning about other people’s lives is interesting. Gorrindo’s prose is solid and her characterizations are compelling. She talks a lot about physical and mental health in a way that I think will be validating for a lot of people in comparable situations.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC copy. My lukewarm feelings are my own.
I’m not entirely sure who this book is for. It’s outside my usual reading scope, but I like trying new things, and the first chapter made it clear that I have some things in common with the author. But I’m not sure who I would recommend it to, as a large focus of the book is dedicated to the question of the author’s ethos and morality, and gradually bending it for the sake of…? Love, perhaps, or comfort. There’s something polished and glossy about the prose, even when she’s getting into the messier bits of her experience, that made me feel like I was being held at arm’s length. At the same time, there’d a lot of stuff that would be mentioned and then set aside. For example, she was in a terrible accident with serious physical repercussions, but then it’s never mentioned it again. A couple chapters end on cliffhangers of a sort that don’t really fit the tone.
The structure just felt a little wonky to me, and it threw the pacing off. I found her narrative engaging while I was reading it, but I’m not sure what to take away with me. This is a problem I often have with memoirs, where I get the sense that the author included everything that felt significant to them without thinking about their story as a narrative structure. I’m sure it’s hard to try to boil your life down to a thesis statement, but the pat ending in particular left me scratching my head.
Still, learning about other people’s lives is interesting. Gorrindo’s prose is solid and her characterizations are compelling. She talks a lot about physical and mental health in a way that I think will be validating for a lot of people in comparable situations.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC copy. My lukewarm feelings are my own.