Reviews

So, I'm a little bit disappointed in this one.

I don't think this book is bad, by any means. Didion is a very skilled writer and I appreciate her reflections on her life, most of the time.

When I read The Year of Magical Thinking by Didion, the thing that deterred me from delegating it 5 stars was Didion's tendency to "flex" and talk about extravagancies in her life without any nuance.

I felt like that aspect was more severe in this book. The consistent tangents to talk about hanging out with famous people or the fact that she wrote the screenplay for A Star is Born (seriously, she won't let you forget that) took away from the parenting memoir (ish) at hand.

Also, I am 17 and childless so I don't think that the whole parenting thing really hit me the way it was supposed to.

Anyway, solid 3 stars.

jennydoesnotgetit's review against another edition

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3.0

Didion’s recollection of losing her only child — so soon after losing her husband — is haunting and powerful. Yet in a weird way, the book also reads like a celebrity tell-all: many famous friends, identified by full name, wearing and bearing designer gifts.
Defensively, Didion writes, “Privilege is a judgment. Privilege is an opinion. Privilege is an accusation. Privilege is an area to which, when I think of what she endured, when I consider what came later, I will not easily cop.”
But to have privilege does not make one less human, nor does it render one beyond the reach of suffering. Just because her daughter had caviar on a [Broadway? Hollywood?] dime as a child does not render her struggle with mental illness less real. If anything, embracing the privilege narrative would make her thesis stronger — it would remind us all that, no matter how lucky or powerful we become, we remain vulnerable, raw, and human.