You have read a lot of memoir lately! I am not a huge fan of memoir, I think I am jealous of folks who can drop everything and fall apart. I have never had that luxury (looking at you, Eat, Pray, Love). I did like this one, but probably because the only thing we had in common was our moms dying of cancer when we were in our 20s. But they were different experiences with completely different aftermaths. Thanks for the review and onto a novel! Happy St Pat’s….
I tried to read this one and it sounded like a personal essay from the get. I want to be put into the story I don’t want exposition. I also seriously struggle with food descriptions as like a personal issue so maybe I’ll skip this one. I loved your own psychoanalysis lol
I love that you can acknowledge that while a book may not be YOUR jam, it still can have merit and be meaningful for others ♥️ I personally struggle to write ANYTHING about memoirs I don't like because it is painful for me to judge someone's life story versus a fictional tale. I will often just focus on the style of writing rather than content, but even that can feel fraught!
I’m interested you didn’t connect with this Mike! I do often think the emotional response people can have from memoirs can tend to be heavily rooted in their personal life - they’re able to identify with struggles of the author and that’s why they are so touched. When I read ‘Crying in H Mart’ I had just been diagnosed and I was feeling alot of emotions around sickness & identity. So reading it just punched me in the gut. But as you say - we all process and display emotion differently and one is not better than the other! I loved the way she approached the novel. Memoir criticism is hard as you never want to come across as criticising their actual life / experience! FYI I think you struck a good balance.
I do also think reading too many memoirs back to back can be very exhausting! It’s good to split them up. Ps can’t wait for you to read Mother Doll as I know how long you’ve been waiting! Looking v much forward to the review!
I’m so relieved about this review because I really did not like this book at all (and I both love memoirs and lost my mom to cancer in my 20s, so by all rights, I *should* have loved it). I found Hausner to be an insufferable, unlikeable brat, honestly. Harsh, I know, but I am never good at sitting with “this didn’t click for me”; I often have to process something a lot to land on exactly why. And that was it. I didn’t like her. At times I wanted to smack her and yell “grow TF up” (to be clear, not the parts when she was sad that her mother was dying or had died, just the parts where she was acting spoiled, entitled, and inconsiderate). I finished it only because I wondered if not liking her was a device, and by the end I’d wind up liking her because she has a personal transformation. But nope. She definitely transformed, but I didn’t like her any better by the end.
You have read a lot of memoir lately! I am not a huge fan of memoir, I think I am jealous of folks who can drop everything and fall apart. I have never had that luxury (looking at you, Eat, Pray, Love). I did like this one, but probably because the only thing we had in common was our moms dying of cancer when we were in our 20s. But they were different experiences with completely different aftermaths. Thanks for the review and onto a novel! Happy St Pat’s….
So weird, I'm literally in the middle of reading this book right now!
I tried to read this one and it sounded like a personal essay from the get. I want to be put into the story I don’t want exposition. I also seriously struggle with food descriptions as like a personal issue so maybe I’ll skip this one. I loved your own psychoanalysis lol
lol that culture study article also tempted me to read ACOTAR
I love that you can acknowledge that while a book may not be YOUR jam, it still can have merit and be meaningful for others ♥️ I personally struggle to write ANYTHING about memoirs I don't like because it is painful for me to judge someone's life story versus a fictional tale. I will often just focus on the style of writing rather than content, but even that can feel fraught!
I’m interested you didn’t connect with this Mike! I do often think the emotional response people can have from memoirs can tend to be heavily rooted in their personal life - they’re able to identify with struggles of the author and that’s why they are so touched. When I read ‘Crying in H Mart’ I had just been diagnosed and I was feeling alot of emotions around sickness & identity. So reading it just punched me in the gut. But as you say - we all process and display emotion differently and one is not better than the other! I loved the way she approached the novel. Memoir criticism is hard as you never want to come across as criticising their actual life / experience! FYI I think you struck a good balance.
I do also think reading too many memoirs back to back can be very exhausting! It’s good to split them up. Ps can’t wait for you to read Mother Doll as I know how long you’ve been waiting! Looking v much forward to the review!
I’m so relieved about this review because I really did not like this book at all (and I both love memoirs and lost my mom to cancer in my 20s, so by all rights, I *should* have loved it). I found Hausner to be an insufferable, unlikeable brat, honestly. Harsh, I know, but I am never good at sitting with “this didn’t click for me”; I often have to process something a lot to land on exactly why. And that was it. I didn’t like her. At times I wanted to smack her and yell “grow TF up” (to be clear, not the parts when she was sad that her mother was dying or had died, just the parts where she was acting spoiled, entitled, and inconsiderate). I finished it only because I wondered if not liking her was a device, and by the end I’d wind up liking her because she has a personal transformation. But nope. She definitely transformed, but I didn’t like her any better by the end.