readingtotravel's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Murder, Grief, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Blood and Cursing
Minor: Gun violence, War, and Injury/Injury detail
allisnowharmed's review
i'm in a place emotionally where it was jane's writing that affected me more apparently but i so love what nelson does here and i trust her pen wholeheartedly
kaileycool's review against another edition
5.0
The experience of reading this in companion to "The Red Parts" is something I would recommend for anyone. Our best idea yet, book club!
gicb38's review against another edition
5.0
To say that I love this book is an understatement. To say that Maggie Nelson’s writing lives inside of me rent free, deep as an ache in between my ribs is accurate.
I don’t think a book has ever left me this breathless, from beginning to end. I had listened to the Red Parts in audiobook last month and have ever since become completely fascinated by everything Nelson has to say. When I found this book in the bookstore it called to me and with reason. So many of the complicated feelings Jane shares in her own diary have been my own and still are, and the way Nelson weaves together this narrative of familial trauma without exploiting the pain is something that I don’t think I will ever see done so well.
I deeply admire Maggie Nelson, and I think I have finally found in her work an all time favorite.
I just want to leave this review with the last words in this book, that seem to be the background of my thoughts now from the moment I wake up to the when I fall asleep
“Above her, the sun is still trying to burn through the mist. Strange, she thinks, how the sun so often appears as a pale circle, not the orgy of unthinkable fire that it is.”
To me this is the most astonishing way someone could ever describe the sun, its light, the fire within rage, young womanhood and loss.
I don’t think a book has ever left me this breathless, from beginning to end. I had listened to the Red Parts in audiobook last month and have ever since become completely fascinated by everything Nelson has to say. When I found this book in the bookstore it called to me and with reason. So many of the complicated feelings Jane shares in her own diary have been my own and still are, and the way Nelson weaves together this narrative of familial trauma without exploiting the pain is something that I don’t think I will ever see done so well.
I deeply admire Maggie Nelson, and I think I have finally found in her work an all time favorite.
I just want to leave this review with the last words in this book, that seem to be the background of my thoughts now from the moment I wake up to the when I fall asleep
“Above her, the sun is still trying to burn through the mist. Strange, she thinks, how the sun so often appears as a pale circle, not the orgy of unthinkable fire that it is.”
To me this is the most astonishing way someone could ever describe the sun, its light, the fire within rage, young womanhood and loss.
isabellanevanlinna's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
foggy_rosamund's review
3.0
Jane was murdered in 1969, when she was a law student in Michigan. Nelson never met her aunt, but wrote this collection as a tribute to her, exploring the ways her death reverberated through the family, and the details of her short life. Nelson includes extracts from Jane's childhood diaries, from letters, and from discussions with parents and friends. It's a moving and imaginative tribute, but it doesn't have the depth or emotional power of Nelson's later work. It feel fragmentary without grabbing our attention. Jane's murder was explored in true crime books and made headline news, and Nelson shows the importance of Jane's life, instead of focusing on her death. The prose and poems here are careful and understated, and it's very competently handled, but I was looking for an emotional pull that Nelson doesn't achieve.