A review by breegoux
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

2.5

The title really does not capture what this book is about, nor somehow does the synopsis? I went into it expecting to glean something from the grief in the year following Didion's husband's death and her daughter's hospitalization and instead mainly just learned about these two events. While there are thoughts and reflections on the nuance of grief there is no "magical thinking" as the title might lead you to believe. It's perhaps a reference to the cognitive dissonance grief puts you in that Didion highlights her own experience with, but this I wouldn't term magical. Having experienced more loss and grief in my life in this past year than I ever have (or ever want to again) I was just expecting more. It didn't tell me any more than what I already knew or provide any hindsight. It just was, which is fine, but I feel shortchanged by how the book was pitched
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