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I honestly can't recall what prompted me to pick up this book. It's quite a departure from my usual reading, a work of "living autobiography" that blends narrative with a distinct essayistic quality.

Structured as a response to George Orwell's "Why I Write," the book serves as Levy's own introspection on her motivations for writing. It brought to mind those university writing classes where we were constantly asking, "Why is the speaker speaking?"

Levy's prose is powerful and robust, yet also intimate and direct. Her writing truly "cuts close to the bone." I admit I didn't catch all of her literary references, which meant I likely missed some of the deeper context. However, the narrative remained easy to follow. The more narrative sections of the book could almost be read as fiction, and they are often quite eye-opening due to their strong sense of place (South Africa, London) and specific time periods.

There's a lot of writing about the female experience, a topic that I'm not so well-acquainted with and I was drawn to compare her to Rachel Cusk, another contemporary author that centers on the female lived experience. Levy's writing deals more with the systemic, the societal, using the freedom that the autobiographical form affords.