There are some helpful ideas for tasks but ultimately this book was a disappointing and irritating distraction. Modelled after AA, the spiritual elemeThere are some helpful ideas for tasks but ultimately this book was a disappointing and irritating distraction. Modelled after AA, the spiritual elements are much like AA in which they insist on pretending that you can follow this as a non believer and just substitute something else for God, and then proceed to bash you with a confusing slush of new age spirituality and really explicit Christianity. If you are not willing or able to convert to this religion, if you won't submit to this surprise evangelism (because frankly she's not very convincing as to why you should) it's because you're afraid. You're doing it wrong. You're blocked. Frankly I found it more than a little condescending. And I found it troubling that the whole framework rests on you submitting to her poorly defined, flimsy religious views. So I don't believe thay creativity is a divine force being imposed upon me from some external source that I just have to open myself up to. Does that mean I cannot live a rich and creative life? No. If I believe in coincidence rather than manifestation does that mean I can't be creative? No. "God has lots of money. God has lots of movie ideas, novel ideas, poems, songs, paintings, acting jobs. God has a supply of loves, friends, houses that are all available to us. By listening to the creator within, we find our ight path." This quote I think represents the self serving navel gazing AMERICAN brand of spirituality. The Christian plus extras that allow you to be the sole focus of whatever this spiritual force is, the channelling of these nebulous forces all in favour of YOUR material gain. It's sickening. Its selfish. It's bereft of meaning. The outright refusal to acknowledge up front her Christianity being the crux of the book makes it this oppressive, dominating force that really got up my nose. The rest of the book includes a lot of encouragement not to engage with people who are difficult of spend your time on people who take you away from your creativity in a way that is unbelievably anti community. Doing things for people even when you would rather be painting is actually not antithetical to a rich creative life either. She says don't assume people are in control of the movie business, God is. It honestly seems completely insane to me. She responds to people's concerns with this gleeful condescension. You don't want to or can't give up reading for a whole week? She rolls her eyes at you and your pathetic excuse making. There's a passage early in the book about truth exposure and how if a child exposes an alcoholic in the family that child will often cop abuse - I wrote "often????" Regularly throughout her examples I was like well she's just making these up to prove her point. What child? And who are these people who are proof positive of her methods ? She also spends a lot of the book making some big assumptions about what has "blocked" you creatively. This can be hit or miss and if it's a miss, most of the tasks for a week can be rendered useless. But, due to her attitude to rejection of some of her methods, there's an element of shame attached to not following parts of that plan.
There are lots of good elements here. Her talk about shame and anger, about accepting nastiness from others because it bolsters your self doubt, about making free time and feeding your creativity. It's all good stuff. But it's couched in this nauseating, condescending, selfish spirituality and self help bullshit. Personally alarm bells started to ring sound week 2 and I quickly found some deep part of myself screaming PROTECT YOURSELF FROM THIS. She wants to convince you you're just a wounded, self sacrificing person who dedicates too much time to others and not enough time to believing in yourself. If you want to believe in yourself just start believing in God and he'll give you a very nice car. Or something.
I would recommend that if you choose to follow this book don't let her convince you you have to submit to her. She has this aura of a megalomaniac 80s therapist with crystals and a deep deep American Christian belief that she cant even quite reckon with. It is influenced by Freud, capitalism, and that one theory that wanting something from the universe will make it happen. The activities she gives you are childish and seem designed to convince you that if you just focus on yourself you can get a nice house. They want to convince you throwing your stuff out and buying new stuff is an act of creative abundance. It's Hollywood brain rot. If you're going to read this and you are not a new age vague spiritualist or Christian and you have any sort of resistance to the Hollywood model of artistic success, I would recommend skimming it in advance and using only certain sections.
I feel deeply regretful that I wasted a period of reinvigoration on the navel gazing activities in this book rather than on actually engaging in creatuve pursuits....more
**spoiler alert** Like catnip for celebrity book clubs. At times surprising and cleverly crafted with insightful observations and growth, it was fun to**spoiler alert** Like catnip for celebrity book clubs. At times surprising and cleverly crafted with insightful observations and growth, it was fun to see how the elements of this story came together. I enjoyed the development of the mindset around parenting in particular. At other times mind numbingly boring and heavy handed, with cliche writing style. It had some of the elements of a classic but full short repeatedly in a way I find difficult to describe. Perhaps it is a pet peeve that means that no book heavily featuring internet culture can ever reach the heights of say a kerouac. It renders the clever and expansive reflection of modern western culture so fucking boring. Alternatively the fundamental disappointment of this book might be the failure to cohesively integrate the theme of wellness, which felt both overly simple in its representation and underdeveloped in its impact on the story....more
At times brilliant , at other times sickeningly embarrassing and difficult to proceed with. Gruelling on occasion as the protagonists situation was juAt times brilliant , at other times sickeningly embarrassing and difficult to proceed with. Gruelling on occasion as the protagonists situation was just so lonely and sad. Sometimes the way you react to a bad situation is bad and stupid and embarrassing and craven and.... sometimes one simply just has to eat.
I longed for piglet to have a good enough life that she would not feel the need to tolerate this shit. It was interesting reading her coming to grips with the ways in which she'd been kind of a mess and a bitch and had hurt others. We love a book where hurt people hurt people....more
A lot of people have found this story disappointing because it doesn't satisfy the desire for a tense, vengeful, drama filled romp. At first I too fouA lot of people have found this story disappointing because it doesn't satisfy the desire for a tense, vengeful, drama filled romp. At first I too found it was undermined by showing us both sides of what was going on through split perspective narration. I hope we can explore stories like this without expecting them to be a representation of all instances of abuse. Those hoping to experience a whole hearted endorsement of online culture like "the list," or a morally simplistic "bad man did bad the way you expect and she doesn't stand for it" story will be disappointed. Readers must start reading with their critical thinking skills in place rather than expecting to be spoon fed exactly what they're expecting. It's not bad to think about the implications of the way we choose to handle difficult issues such as exposing abuse, and one story is not acomment on how this situation always is or must be in real life.
By the end, I had come to feel it was a piece of work demonstrating the rare gift to hold the many complicated facets of navigating abuse and betrayal in a modern relationship. It maintained compassion and nuance exploring the racial complications to fraught issues affecting women, the complicated social landscape of men and women in a time where we are suddenly, publicly, grappling with the prevalence of many different levels of abuse, and the conflict that arises when you find yourself in the midst of an issue you are used to watching from the outside. How should one conduct themselves? Initially I was frustrated with the direction of the story but ultimately found it so human and real.
I especially loved that space was given to a man coming to realise his complicity in misogyny and grappling with whether he is the good person he tells himself he is. Ultimately there were a few details that I think undermined the story and slowed it down but it was a complicated human tale of a specific woman wonder what the fuck you're supposed to do when the man you love stands accused, and the love you had doesn't magically disappear.
I think it's necessary to reflect on what black and white thinking and online conduct does to these complex social issues. I found this a new and interesting manner of doing that and so didn't pick up some of the "plot holes" other readers have mentioned.
I find myself wanting to recommend this story to men in my life who I think might benefit from following Michael along his journey. I hope it could show some men what their selfishness and defensiveness does not only to the people around them , but how it can harm other unrelated parties at the end of the book.
I would highly recommend the audiobook which brought a charming element to parts I could imagine may have been a bit boring (online stuff) and a sense of humanity to elements that may have been hard to connect with....more
Anti Vax shit. Ironically reductionist. Poor science communication. Fights against the shadow figure of doctors and scientists who dont believe diet aAnti Vax shit. Ironically reductionist. Poor science communication. Fights against the shadow figure of doctors and scientists who dont believe diet and exercise are some of the most important parts of health. I would love get a peek into the world he lives in, where this is not the primary line of defence against illness by doctors, government health guidelines, scientists, lifestyle coaches, youtubers.... etc...more
Hamfisted radfem messaging and clumsy use of mixed perspectives tripped this book just as it started to hit a good pace. The firs(Vague spoiler ahead)
Hamfisted radfem messaging and clumsy use of mixed perspectives tripped this book just as it started to hit a good pace. The first section is from Coles perspective. He sees himself as a good man who respects women and the slow drip of evidence that his portrayal of events and his self image do not line up with what others experience of him is quite thrilling and creepy. He is ready to snap at any second. He's operating from a totally different perspective from the people around him and thus is a bit unpredictable. I think this section had the makings of a brilliant and effective thriller about a man who is blinded by his self narrative and therefore permits In himself terrifying misogyny and violence, even if he is unaware of his worst outbursts. The second section quickly deflates all that lovely building tension by switching to Coles ex wife's perspective and giving you her side of the past 7 years, effectively ruining any intrigue by carefully spelling out what he did to her and exactly how it made her feel as compared to his perspective. I wish the author had trusted the reader. I know Cole was getting the wrong impression and it was easy to infer what his experiences would have seemed like to the other person involved. I didn't need to witness it from inside her head. I found that from this section on it became a similar experience to reading a long hand wringing essay on how to be female is to suffer or something. It was like reading a twitter radfem lecture somebody on and on. Literally it has podcast transcripts, news articles, tweets, Facebook posts and comments. It was so grim to read through. The pages of insults towards women and misogynistic tweets were so dull and soulless. When I read a real life adult on Facebook talking shit about women and there's like stupidity in the comments it makes my blood boil. It makes me get hot and grit my teeth and I have to put my phone away. But this book had none of the tension or vitriol as it meandered away from the action and into the comment section. Receiving news about the mystery in the story via actual news bulletins from a podcast felt so so detached. Where was the thrill of that?
Anti porn messaging so straightforwardly presented I couldn't quite tell how I'm supposed to receive it. I wonder at the authors intentions! Was I supposed to just go oh yes porns bad or was I supposed to read this as the media missing the point or being reductionist or ... something else?
I predicted the ending and I guess the issues I had were that I got keyed up expecting a thriller and then what I was actually reading was a news drama about women making a point to the media and entrapping a man in an elaborate scheme of inadmissible evidence
Perhaps if I flip my interpretation to being a dissection of an extreme act in leaning in to the carcereal system as a weapon and the fallout from that act rather than a bold, obvious message barely dressed up from the tumblr post you might have read about the drama in 2016.
By the end the point has been explained from several perspectives and the book has held your hand and told you every thought a human being could have in response. There is nothing else to chew over except trying to judge the level of irony or complexity here. My suspicion is that it is more unsophisticated and repetitive than it is complex.
I love a man hating feminist in fiction but this is artless.
Disappointing ! But still fun in a weird, wasting my afternoon online kind of way....more
I thought i was revisiting a different book with a similar title. Sorely disappointing.
Sometimes another person's emotional immaturity, inability to I thought i was revisiting a different book with a similar title. Sorely disappointing.
Sometimes another person's emotional immaturity, inability to cope or self regulate, is not actually abuse even if it is painful and dusregulating to experience. This book stems from a school of psychology I find inflammatory and narrow minded. Mist of all I find it disempowering.
I hope other people interested in this topic manage to get out from under the rage and sense of yourself as still being a victim child and take on the role of compassionate adult who has the power to set their boundaries, be that cutting somebody out, or just understanding that an emotionally immature parent will only change if they're ready. Build that self esteem, get a sense of yourself as an adult distinct and separate from your parents, and start ruly believing that your parents inability to grow is sad but need not ruin your life. Set boundaries accordingly. Accept it is not your job to manage their emotions that arise in response.
Thrilling, chilling, gripping. A truly baffling example of manipulation, to a scale and extent that's difficult to understand. I really recommend the Thrilling, chilling, gripping. A truly baffling example of manipulation, to a scale and extent that's difficult to understand. I really recommend the audiobook as the actor readings of the chat messages and emails makes it much more understandable how these women could fall in love with such a manipulative prick so quickly, without meeting. In text it was a little less compelling. I think you can tell the author felt self conscious about having fallen for this and she works quite hard to let you know it was a different time. To me this was a bummer because people are lonely and disconnected and falling for catfishes right up to this day. It missed the opportunity to add some depth by threading an exploration of what the hell is up with catfishing and what in our world seems to have aligned for this phenomenon to be so common through the story. Could have been very subtle with a bit of trust that the reader wouldn't just read this going "well how did you fall for that ...more
Sometimes you meet a book at just the right time. Early in 2024 I started reading this and I finished it in December on audiobook. I adored it. The coSometimes you meet a book at just the right time. Early in 2024 I started reading this and I finished it in December on audiobook. I adored it. The complex, slow journey of growth and change in all the characters was captivating. The ways they couldn't or didn't grow felt real. Food and patriarchy will sadly long be intertwined and I love reading women from cultures different to my own exploring these issues. The descriptions of food are sumptuous and engaging. They made me hungry in a way I ahevnt experienced since reading chocolat as a child. It has changed my relationship with butter forever. Just yesterday I ate butter with rice as I misjudged the timing of my cooking and couldn't wait any longer for my curry to finish cooking. It was delicious and i thought of this story.
I loved sensual nature of the story. The development of connection to different sensory experiences, sensuality, and sexuality aligned with a burgeoning irritation and inner strength. An individuals journey out from under the subtle suppression of restriction and patriarchy, an exploration of shocking conformity while still holding connection to others. It lead me to pick up the book Sensual by Kenika Patel.
I especially loved the way that by the end of this story, the protagonist has a warm group of people around her for support who she happily connects with eachother. She enjoys their company unselfconsciously.
Her transformation is total and enviable.
I relished the way that these characters journeys were not necessarily aiming to please or satisfy the reader. It felt like following the arcs of real lives. This is something I also noticed about the film Perfect Day, where he interacts with the dramatics of a side characters life but we never see that story resolve as it's not part of his life and he doesn't experience it. There's an emotional realism in a lot of the Japanese books and films I've engaged with in the past few years that seems so striking and honest.
While there were some elements of this book that could certainly be critiqued I think overall it was successful, engaging, wonderful. I think I will probably read this again a couple of times....more
A fabulous, urgent premise for a thriller. There's conspiracy that reflects and exaggerates real life, there's intrigue and uncertainty about what's hA fabulous, urgent premise for a thriller. There's conspiracy that reflects and exaggerates real life, there's intrigue and uncertainty about what's happening and who can be trusted. Unfortunately, the pacing is really strange, the characters poorly developed, and some of the plot points felt really clumsy.
I think this books suffers from something that often happens when an author from a marginalised group writes about their exprrience, their environment, their people, which is that the expectations for moral and political messaging are extremely high. Because of the real-world source that is drawn upon, it can feel disappointing when it's not a literary masterpiece that deftly handles it all with moral clarity and nuance. If you want to read an angry fuck you to the white colonisers who violently displace and use people of colour to their own ends, going into their communities and erasing and policing them for cultural differences, a celebration of black community and in a way of class solidarity, and the fantasy of successfully fighting your way out of violent oppression, you will enjoy this book. The protagonist takes the ultimate control. She fights hard. She overcomes. She adapts to the awful circumstances she is put in. She is pushed to act in ways she never would outside of the violence that's enacted upon her. It's a wonderful exploration of the toll of racism, the various arms of racism, and so many other things. Others have written reviews talking about the strange demographics in this booksuch as where are the Jewish new Yorkers and I think it's unfair to expect a book to feature everything for diversity sake. It needed a narrowing of scope to create an air of claustrophobia, I think, of not just "why should we move" but "where could we go?" They are trapped and penned in and the author is concerned with anti black racism and that's fine.
However there are many features that made it fall flat for me from a story telling perspective.
Theo, white man who struggles with his relationship to racism was an interesting feature but I'm not sure why he was given his own perspective chapters as if this was an F tier romance novel. In fact, I'm not sure why he was a love interest at all. I felt that he was primed to be the perfect final piece of the violence the black community was facing: the white guy who wants to be on their side but is a danger to their safety because of his struggles with his racism. He was spying on her and sexualising her and I wonder why the opportunity wasn't taken to explore the fact that despite his own intentions he was a creep and an interloper. I suppose it was in the interest of class solidarity but no I didn't find Theo a believable love interest and I found his being a priority in this story a shame. Again, I think it's fine to have the story end on a hopeful note for white people being able to help, and class being an important vector of connection. However THEO as a character was a strange pick to fill this role and his prominence felt distracting.
I felt that there was another missed opportunity, and I attribute it to pacing, which was the ways the white people revealed their racism. I felt that the racists seemed flat and were not effectively written villains. there was a rich source of conflict and fear and slow reveal of racism that could have made the escalation more thrilling and creepy, with more gaslighting and uncertainty. Again, I think excluding Theo's perspective would have helped this as the partial insight into the white people's private lives, and Theo's own grappling with racism, felt sudden and overly simple. Without him, I think the overt racist experiences from the perspective of our black protagonist make total sense and the escalation could afford to be jumpy as we are not getting any background insight into their progression from the other side. having a peek behind the curtains from Theo's perspective introduced an element of partial insight that made the villains seem cartoonish, incomplete, flat. Which is a shame because the events that happen are not significantly exaggerated from real life systemic harm enacted against black Americans.
I feel bad to compare to get out like everybody else has, but I kept finding myself thinking that the stark difference between the two was in the pacing and effectiveness of the villains. Strangely, the text with the more supernatural element wound up being more realistic I think in part because the white people in Get Out were maintained as a nefarious "other," whose racism and motivations were teased and revealed slowly. They seemed like real complex humans who nonetheless turned out to feel justified in doing extreme harm and being quite plainly evil. Just like real life racists. Perhaps it was simply more skilful dialogue writing.
while it's not imperative to spend a lot of time understanding the minds of racists when you're an author writing this sort of book if that's not your intention, perhaps if you want to include insight into their perspective through a conduit like theo it is necessary to try to make those characters fully human with their own interiority and conflict.
It was like there wasn't enough time in this book which is remarkable given its length and I think having our protagonist as the sole narrator would have added a lot more space, easing some of the confusing and staggering escalations that happen throughout, particularly the sudden and rapid escalation in the final quarter. Others have pointed to this dramatic and sudden shift in pace towards the end as the major disappointment in this book. It would have given our protagonist time to develop her relation ship with theo. the actual evidence the protagonist had to develop trust for him from what she experienced of him was limited. The reader knows much more than she does about him. As such I dont think it made sense for this specific character to develop the specific relationship she did with this white man, however had so much time not been devoted to him I would have written it off as like irl sometimes shit gets crazy and you trust whoever shows up consistently and said glad she had some company. I can see how the Theo element felt worth exploring and I can see wait it aimed to do I just think it put too much time pressure on an already complicated and dense story.
I adored the beginning, the slow creep of gentrification, the inability to escape these harmful little parasites taking on more prominence, her disappearing neighbours and loss of community. I was fascinated by her grappling with her mental health, doubts about her sanity and her struggle to validate her perception of what was happening in front of her. I suspect this element in particular will speak to women of colour who read this. I loved the plot line about her community garden that was too much responsibility; about the burden of care as community support falls into communities with decreasing resources, time, and massive personal stressors. I loved the background tension of her closest confidant suddenly dropping all communication in the midst of all the disappearances. I also loved the inclusion of experienced elders and their role in the end of the book. Finally, I really appreciated the inclusion of debt and the weaponisation of financial instability as this is something that is just a normal part of our lives and is a violent form of oppression, as it affects every element of life through stress and instability. I wish that the connection to Theo had been more grounded in class solidarity and built around these themes but sadly he just filled a huge potential liability "but I'm not like other white guys prommy" role....more
A book that stirred a conflicting response in me! On the one hand I thoroughly enjoyed reading about a character who was devoted and loving to the loveA book that stirred a conflicting response in me! On the one hand I thoroughly enjoyed reading about a character who was devoted and loving to the love interest based on who they actually are, total acceptance and enjoyment of the quirks and shortcomings. Commitment to openness, commitment to commitment, surety about feelings and intentions. All present, all lovely. There was a time in this story where I thought hey wow he is really putting a lot of pressure on a woman he just met like this sureness is turning to control quite quickly. But he's just a dude with flaws and he navigates coming back from his mistakes well. The writing about their connection and their physical attention to one another was compelling, if a little rushed, and the sex scenes didn't make me cringe and skip them because I believed that these two really had that connection, and the writing around those subjects was purposeful and creative without getting too silly. However it all seemed to be lacking a certain .... pizazz. I often find modern romance tends to either be abuse or the type of conversations and behaviours you'd read in a therapists "guide to conflict resolution" or "how to share your feelings." This book managed to be somewhere in the middle with the characters being allowed to be simply flawed people. But the ways things came together, the speed, the obvious lining up of the sister with the best friend of the love interest for a sequel, it all felt a bit... mass produced for commercial sale. I found myself longing for something more. Half heartedly elevating characters who'd created a bit of conflict to the status of antagonist after weeks of simply forgetting the existed, having the protagonists path be so so clear right from the start then having to go through the process of her figuring it out, the instant and utter devotion between the two of them and the speed with which they resolved any doubts or conflicts, it all came together for something that felt quite shallow.
This type of writing, this type of romance, feels dated and does even as it is being published. We are in a distinct era of mass paper back romance and I find it totally uninvigorating. I call it Millenial Romance. It often reads like it was written by people who have never had these hot intense experiences with love and maybe don't hear about their friends having them but have read about them, or watched movies. And in response to their reading and watching they thought "I could make that nicer, cleaner." One of the hallmarks of this style is the split perspective. This is a feature where, usually first person but not always, the book is split between sections where we get insight into the protagonist and then the love interests perspective.
I felt the earnest attempt to have a really interesting story of self growth with Piper, the protagonist, and I would probably have liked this book a lot more if she had been fleshed out more. We breeze past her feelings, her challenges, and her growth, making her seem 2 dimensional and exactly as shallow as she's trying to prove she isn't. If you're going to take the approach of the love interest being totally accepting, loving, committed, right from the start, I think it would have made sense to decentre him a bit. Don't give us his perspective so we can worry with piper. We can experience her anxieties about what things mean, see her learning how to resolve her concerns internally, feel what it's like to receive the unconsitional support and love she's never had and experience her learning to trust it. Instead we are whisked away into his head, we know what he thinks and his goals and its used as a short cut to rush through her adjusting to him.
Reading this in the midst of a Marian Keyes binge I found myself longing for a bit more of life's uncertainty, for the characters to be given time and space to grow organically, for the character flaws to be real and difficult rather than easily outgrown. Or even worse, to simply feel lile quirks.
It's like a read in a day at the beach kind of a book....more
Ah one of the earliest works. The story of a woman with an alcoholic father, who's alcoholism she can't confront or accept. She finds her father in evAh one of the earliest works. The story of a woman with an alcoholic father, who's alcoholism she can't confront or accept. She finds her father in every man she tries to date and her romantic life is a miserable series of failures as a result. She hates her mother and resents her for being the stick in the mud criticising hag who seems determined to keep her fun, free father down. She is desperate not to be that person to her partners, or to her father.
It's quite the journey to go on with her as she is confronted with reality and grows a back bone, being snapped out of her own destructive cycle. I really enjoy parts of this book. However the mean spirited friends and flatmates, the nasty homophones, racist, and fat phobic jokes... it's all just a bit relentless in this one and I did find it grated on me. I think she refined her portrayal of these 90s and 2000s UK folks with their uninhibited ignorance in later books, making it more occasional and balanced. Here it is just outright bigotry and it's quite uncomfortable. Sucks the fun right out....more
Honestly Keyes really is something special. This book presented itself to me in a liliput library in a small town just before Christmas and busted me Honestly Keyes really is something special. This book presented itself to me in a liliput library in a small town just before Christmas and busted me out of a years long slump. The way that keyes writes flawed, shallow, mean, stupid, funny, normal people who make the wrong choices and can't see what's in front of them is so charming. I've been a reader of hers since I first found my mums copy of Watermelon at about 10 years old, and I read "chick lit" and romance broadly. She is rarely rivalled in her particular genre. Often to find a writer who captures the flawed modern human life in all its shallow, bitchy, complicated, messy glory you stray out of the "chick lit" zone and into something different. Normal People comes to mind. How does she make it so the reader can both see where the characters are going wrong but also understand how and why they're headed in the wrong direction as it happens? How does she take these superficial themes and jobs and interests and still have this thriving, gritty life to them while still maintaining the light summer romance, eat it in one sitting quality. I don't personally have a lifestyle comparable to the people in her books, and I don't really know people who party and back stab and eat at restaurants all the time, who are openly mean to their friends and have dramas and confrontations all the time, who refuse to be political. I find that as I get older and leave office work I'm quite disdainful of this modern life removed from "politics". But somehow I still love her characters and am engrossed in their jobs, their friends, their struggles. I also find that this naked charm and willingness to show her characters getting down in the muck makes it easier to digest what we would now consider problematic. I think it's an example of how sometimes having to say the perfect thing doesn't give enough grace for loving stupidity and playfulness. And when it does stray into outright meanness and ignorance, I find myself thinking well people of this class in this environment at this time were just talking like that. Because the characters are realistic and three dimensional their shitty behaviour doesn't feel like an endorsement it feels like just ... how they are. It's kind of like the always sunny effect except her books don't have the vibe of "punishing" her characters. Keyes gives me the sense that despite our flaws, despite what tragedy may arise, we can get through and will likely learn a lesson. Even if things don't turn out how we imagined or don't go well, we change and keep moving. Keyes has the classic Irish talent for taking the struggles and making them rich and playful.
Maybe it's nostalgia that makes me want to give her a pass on some of the nastier stuff in her books when it would ruin my enjoyment under other authors, but I really think it's her skill in writing a good old fashioned lovable dickhead.
Anyway I read 3 of her books in one week and this was the best of the three, particularly outstripping Lucy Sullivan Gets Married in which the bigotry does get really really tiresome. Hence the general review not really addressing the book with much specificity. Would still rate sushi, charming man, and any of the Rachel's holiday series/group over her other works....more
I read this because I thought a review I saw was being very harsh so I wanted to check it out. The truth is that this is a deeply fascinating book. A I read this because I thought a review I saw was being very harsh so I wanted to check it out. The truth is that this is a deeply fascinating book. A wonderful example of white feminist dysfunction ( And i want to make it clear from the jump that i am a life long hard out feminist) and the lazy use of feminism that is so popular amongst privileged women suffering from arrested devlopment. A dumbfounding story of (to pull a phrase from a decade ago) unexamined privilege and poor insight. I wonder at the point of writing this so soon into the therapy process, as Tendler does not seem to have been able to judge at all how she comes across in this book. I wonder at the purpose of exposing herself like this.
She believes a man fundamentally cannot understand her and so aims to see no male mental health professionals, then experiences being treated poorly by a long-time female therapist and benefiting from the care of her male counterparts. Don't worry it doesn't make her reflect on how her dogmatic view of men may be limiting her and contributing to her being unable to achieve good stable relationships (not just romantic) with men. In fact she utterly dismisses their thoughts at the endof the book. She doesnt seem to be able to reckon with her anger towards the female Dr either. I think that she does indeed experience ridiculous treatment under the psychiatric system and I am not a big psychiatry defender as I find it a chauvinistic racist and narrow science in its infancy. But she doesn't seem to be able to identify any other factors in this situation beyond men doing her wrong.
Her focus on men is so intense she seems utterly blinded to everything else. Including to how her view of men may be leading her to partnerships with shit head dudes who don't respect her. How can you find a good male partner when you believe men are truly evil and distinctly different, even to the point of not wanting to have a boy child despite the obvious opportunity that presents for feminists to shape the next generation of men. When you believe men are essentially a tool to support your lifestyle whose value is determined by their looks, wealth, and the neighbourhood they live in, it seems unlikely you're going to meet thoughtful guys who want to hear your opinions on Joan Didion, happily unwilling to dare to contribute their own thoughts to discussions.
She feels entitled to money, entitled to fun work, and is willing to submit herself to rich male partners over and over to benefit from their wealth. She acknowledges this quite directly. Does not seem to understand how this pursuit (both the men and the rich influencer lifestyle) may be making her unhappy. Doesnt seem to understand the unbelievable privilege of repeatedly choosing to bow out of undesirable work. I think that engaging in feminist works by anti capitalist thinkers who could teach her about community and value building in life. She does not seem to ever really experience personal satisfaction in anything other than being frail. This book was desperately in need of intersectional feminism.
Her female relationships are plagued with nasty judgements that she doesn't seem to clock. Her feminism is performative, not fully realised, and used as a tool to distance herself from others but never to enrich her life. It Is not a framework from which she can build better community with women, through which she can identify men who will be politically and socially aligned with her. It is a tool for her to belittle and berate.
Especially of note is she did not know until approximately 2022 that it's not supposed to hurt when you have sex. I don't doubt that there are women who never hear that sex can be pleasurable and who never have a enjoyable sex. I am shocked a highly educated, supposedly highly social and intelligent, "feminist" American woman has never heard differently. Inequality in sexual pleasure is one of the most popular conversations of modern feminism dating back to the 60s at least. Tendler doesnt really reflect on the more other social structures that might lead a woman in her position to miss the memo here, only seeing the role of patriarchy (yes, the men who slept with her with no concern about her pleasure is an issue of patriarchy) and not class, not examining the influences she has cultivated such as her female friendships. Why is she not in commune with other feminists, of any gender, who mught have mentioned this? What are the factors that have lead to this social and intellectual isolation from feminist thinkers? Is it the intense antagonism she demonstrates whenever she discusses feminism or when somebody disagrees with or has different information to her ? Is it her focus on achieving a life of privilege that has landed her in a particular social circle? Is it a failure of sex education that she could have explored in connection to the oppression of women and education?
Could she handle having her feminist view challenged by another feminist?
She reports having these long close female friendships but she rarely mentions them and in fact there is evidence that she has been quite a selfish friend, prioritising her male partners and not making her friends feel she cares to celebrate with or nurture them. She gets frustrated that her therapist doesn't get a full picture of what her mother is like but she does not seem motivated to actually provide it. Then she gets frustrated that the therapists say she isn't willing to confront her anger at her mother after failing to accurately inform them of the changed relationship and her mother's growth. She does her mother and herself a huge disservice here by speaking of her in very limited terms (to the therapist) and only bothering to treat her as a full-time fleshed out person later for this book. She also has a strikingly unsympathetic view of her father compared to her mother when it seems her mother was the actual destructive force. I wonder if it is a misogyny of sorts to refuse to really reckon with a woman's capacity for harm. To refuse to confront what overwhelms half the stories in this book: she has not finished processing the anger or reckoning with the effect her mothers anger had on her despite their now changed relationship.
She gives men a pass by expecting that they are inherently pigs and therefore she is neither able to navigate normal relationship conflict as anything other than violent misogyny, nor to see and find men who are feminists. It is an impotent sort of rage that leaves her still chasing the same men as she assumes they are all that way.
It is also bizarre the way she talks about her smallness. Her beauty. Her positive attributes as gushed about by others. I love a confident woman but Tendler focuses on things that are frankly unfeminist when expressing her view of herself. She is still attached to patriarchal standards for femininity and beauty.
Frankly I think that this was a deeply sad book about an unfulfilled, frustrated life centring around men who she hates and has perceived as hating her. I do not deny that she has experienced misogyny and hurt, that she is successfully following a path of healing through therapy. But I don't believe she is able to see the difference between interpersonal conflict and misogynistic abuse. I don't think she has any insight into how frivolous and ridiculous her lifestyle and her willingness to pursue access to wealth through men comes across. I don't think she understands the nuances of personal accountability or responsibility. She knows her obsession with dating men who don't really like her is a reason why her relationships are so destructive, she doesn't reflect one's how her selections may be skewing her intense opinions about men in general. Patriarchy is obviously at the root of what lead her to these behaviours but she's really struggling with seeing her own complicity in not meaningfully following a more challenging feminist path.
It is impossible for me to write this without seeming like I'm dogging on her as a person or blaming her for her bad relationships or whatever. I'm not trying to do that. Her journey through these issues should be her business. However I believe that this book fails because of her lack of insight, and her underdevoped politic contributes to that significantly: she cannot develop her story in a meaningful or interesting way without seeming selfish because she can't understand her own situation. One doesnt have to have insight, necessarily, and its a fraught term with baggage from its use in psychiatry. Here i use it to mean her reflections are so focused on how she feels and what happened to her in her romsntic relationships that she cant really draw the broader points she seemed to want to draw out or understand others. She can't make a point about the impact of patriarchy in her life because she is not really a feminist with any psrticulsr socio political understanding or framework. Where is the praxis! Where is the resistance? Her writing seems selfish, and myopic because she never reflects on her environment or builds political arguments with like current events or stories from other people or their feelings. She doesnt seem to care about the interior life of others and avoids connecting her own story to others in any meaningful way. This narrow focus undermines the story telling and is an amateurish writing style in my opinion. Shes not bringing anything to the table that makes this worthwhile purely as autobiography either. Why should I be interested in Anne Marie Tendler? She doesn't seem to care to convince me of a reason. Am i supposed to care because of her instagram photography and some lamps she started making on a whim? She doesnt demonstrate any artistic passion or discuss her vision or motivation. What does she really have to say about the mundane misogyny that white rich women with oodles of leisure time experience ? Does she think that somebody who wasn't already of the same opinions as her would be swayed about feminism by this book? She hasnt reckoned with her internalised misogyny, doesnt have a developed approach to or thoughts about feminism. So why did she write this? It certainly can't be a passion for writing as the story is not lovingly crafted or presented. This project seems devoid of passion or purpose, too.
We don't even get any John mulaney dirt. Her story telling has the hallmark contrived, guarded confessionalism of many millenial writers. She wants to hit you with blunt vulnerability but she is not skilled at weilding it in conjunction with any details that would make it compelling and relatable (scene building, world building, context, connection to broader themes or events, I'm repeating myself!). But she is also not willing to fully lean in to tabloid style curiosity, and the elephant in the room was a more provocative and interesting insight into misogyny and her place in the world than anything she did include. Why did I leave this story about a woman navigating misogyny feeling that perhaps she has indeed just been afforded opportunities because of her proximity to a man?
It feels distasteful and irritating to read a memoir granted to a woman due to her proximity to wealth and fame at this time of economic struggle and conflict. It feels frustrating to imagine that this toxic, isolating, bitter, shallow version of feminism is repeatedly platformed due to thirst for the sad white lady story. I am baffled by the experience of reading this. If it were fiction I would say wow what an interesting experiment in class privilege and the limitations of modern therapy, the intense lack of meaning, connection, and fulfilment of a life lived in pursuit of rich men.
Anna Marie if you are, as I suspect, the sort of person who reads their reviews I am begging you to like... go and volunteer. Focus on your friends. Read bell hooks and other women of colour on feminism, masculinity, and community building. Decentre men. Put emphasis on literally anything else. Please.
I would have been interested to have read this story focusing on the limitation of modern psychology, revolving around the content of the psychiatric report she details at the end and talking about how the doctors in-person approach of treating her as a person who could learn to overcome distress and challenge, compared to the analysis in the report that calls her a depressed agressive man hating brodeline who cant confront her real issue (her mother). Although first she would need to get A grasp on why psychiatric reports are written the way they are and that saying she "denied" drug use or whatever else is not a negative expression or a challenge. The final chapter demonstrates how sensitive she is amd how early into the process of therapy she is. In 10 years I wonder what her reflection on this report will be.
Perhaps this is all a meta thing and she's just like accurately and bluntly reporting on her mindset at the time and its unfair to assume a story must have a mature and developed insight for it to be worthwhile. Maybe assuming she would want to convince me of her feminism as being developed or reasonable is unfair. Perhaps we should all read this as simply a woman's journey. Or maybe I'm right in judging it as failing to be either artistically or politically interesting or well developed, AND failing as a demonstration of her personal journey.
I wonder if she will be able to reflect after this outpouring of fruatration from women who feel that this book is ... underwhelming when it comes to its feminism....more
I wish desperately that editors would catch the sorts of repeated phrases that have become cliche in a certain type of modern fiction. One example wouI wish desperately that editors would catch the sorts of repeated phrases that have become cliche in a certain type of modern fiction. One example would be the use of "on the tip of her tongue" or flavours lingering "on her tongue." The language in this book can be repetitive and too similar to the style of many other authors currently writing. The story of suffering and the journey, of struggling just to survive, of wits and perseverance and giving up but having to keep going until life is done with you, is powerful. The themes of the story are relevant to our modern times with displacement and disaster on the rise. Displacement, powerlessness, the purpose of life, connection to nature, etc etc it's all very pressing. I suspect the earnest breathy delivery of the audiobook narrator drew more attention to this writing style that doesn't resonate for me. I also found the time line somewhat confusing and unbelievable although I suspect that was deliberate. I may reread this in physical form in a few years to see how much the audiobook was letting this story down in terms of tracking those sorts of choices....more
Hamilton needs to fire her editor. Or hire an editor at all. There is nothing distinct about the voice of this book. Somebody needs to help Hamilton cHamilton needs to fire her editor. Or hire an editor at all. There is nothing distinct about the voice of this book. Somebody needs to help Hamilton catch the rote phrases and observations she uses over and over and over across her books that make all her characters sound the same. She's also had an issue with long winding expositional conversations for years. They are boring and inhuman to read. It makes it impossible for the characters to have distinct voices from one another let alone being different from other books. At least with the Blake and Gentry series they were so long that they began before Hamilton fell into this pattern, so we had pre-established worlds and characters to take the edge off. Another quirk that Hamilton includes in all her books these days is her grapple with religion: she seems to be a devout Christian who rail's against "organised" religion and in her attempts to be inclusive she does this sometimes interesting thing where all faiths are as real as Christianity, if we take their effects in the magical systems as proof of that anyway. But the problem is that she is so culturally Christian and all her protagonists are intensely Christian regardless of their struggles with their faith that it winds up flattening and disrespecting other religions. "Abrahamic" religions are treated as fundamentally Christian with basically the same beliefs in angels etc. The way experience of the world is so fundamentally Christian that the inclusion of other religions makes it seem like their experience of their faith having real world manifestations are only possible by the grace of God, father of Jesus. It's disappointing because a world where are religions manifest as true through the magic system is theoretically very interesting but Hamilton is too busy with the same old trite dialogue about cops having to use "PC" language that includes all faiths (while still boiling them down to the Good Guy vs The Enemy), and horrors being too much for the eye to understand at first, and all these things that every single one of her characters say in every single book she writes. There is no room for robust or realistic world building. For example, tell me why the majority of this book is conversations happening in one hospital over one or two days when the world building in the conversations could be achieved by varying the location and encounters ?
I often wonder if Hamilton has gotten herself into a social bubble since becoming a famous author where nobody is willing to give her feedback and nobody exists outside of the bizarre character types she's created. If she speaks with the people I'm her life the way her characters do i magine it must be painful to converse with her. Everybody is combative, obsessed with names, and mostly devoid of individual personality.
It is frankly one of the most boring books I've attempted to read in years....more
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