Reviews

How should a person be? Really?

Heti has this way of asking all the questions that have always plagued my little heart, some of which I never knew how to form into questions or even know how to ask. But here, she forms them in ways that have brought so much care for me.

I think Heti writes for lonely people. Because her characters are usually the loneliest people in the world. So, could you blame a woman for wanting to dictate her life with a flip of a coin? Let heads or tails speak for her? Speak to her?

As both men and women in our narrator's life bombard her with the pressures of becoming a mother, you start to realize how much mothering exists outside of being a mother. Mothering is so inherent in life. In the way that we care, in the way that we move through the world. Femininity is laced so finely within our humanity, and how a patriarchal or anti-feminist society denies this is truly shocking to me. Look at a tree. Look at a fawn. Look at a running river or the calmness of a lake. Look at how yeast rises. How can you not see the mother in everything?

A book I will return to in the near future. Next time, with a highlighter in hand.

myliminality's review

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

njderoche's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

One of the most complicated books I’ve ever read. The stream of consciousness writing worked so well, it was like we were living in her head and only in her head. I had no sense of her life, her routine, her relationships outside of snippets of conversation and reflection. This book grapples with life choices, societal pressures, and what it means to live life authentically. I would be interested to reread this book when I am in my 30s, and again in my 40s, to see if my takeaway is the same and if I stand by what I believe to be true now. I loved the line about how we must accept the life that is being lived through us now and put the other lives we might have lived aside. By not making choices, we still make choices.