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

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

The book has a writing style that I am obsessed with but one that also makes me feel like I have constantly lost my footing. In the collection of stories, I felt like many chapters were repetitions of one another or repeating similar information with different delivery. Specifically the middle chunk of the book felt like I really had to push through. Still, her reflections on grief were fascinating and I found her last few chapters to be particularly poignant. I think reading this before I have experienced any grief of my own gives me a false sense of distaste for the novel that I might not hold in the future. Maybe not. And warning that Didion always does seem to write a bit pretentiously about her life and can often come across as a bit privileged. Only writing all these as notes, I still enjoyed the book and her work. South and West is up next!!!
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