A review by annecharlotte_reads
The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

In the vast expanse of true crime writing, this book brings dignity, depth and beauty -- there's no voyeuristic aesthetisation of the death of women but the writing itself is beautiful and soft and hard in all the right places. Maggie Nelson is both a poet and one of the most interesting thinkers of our time. She deals with autobiographic material in a subtle and powerful way, never relying too much on metaphor or obvious connections. I found particularly interesting to read this after The Argonauts and measure just how much, between these books, some of Nelson's central themes (women's bodies and autonomy, violence, mortality, what it means to be a family) and original thinking have developed. 
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