The Year of Magical Thinking has embarrassingly been on my TBR list since it came out in 2005. So it's only fitting that my review was also so long in being finalized. It finally made it on my TBR shelf thanks to my local library used book sale and I picked it up for a solid $1. As soon as I started reading I remembered why I had been so interested in reading in the first place. To say that Joan Didion is an exceptional writer should really not have to be said, but for the uninitiated, Joan Didion and her husband John Dunne are basically literary royalty. That a personal tragedy would occur and the best way Joan could process it was to write it all out as a touching memoir is the least surprising thing that could happen. And it's fortunate for us that she decided to do this. Because there is something so poignant in the way she has shared her sorrow. She's able to put words to experiences that others can only feel. And she has access, in her brain, from all this writing to the writing of others that can succinctly say what she needs said, and there's only honor in turning to these sources when they're required. I read: "'one has only learnt to get the better of words / For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which / One is no longer disposed to say it'". YES!! My heart sang as I LITERALLY leapt out of my seat. Yes! I've felt so many things in my life that I was unable, at the time, to explain or comprehend, only later to find I could put words to the thoughts when they were no longer relevant, or no longer urgent and the time had past for saying them.Joan is able to spell out the pain and confusion and just plain heartache that comes when losing a spouse. The fog she wandered in for months afterwards feels so real and so damn relate-able, even if I can't imagine myself in a NY apartment, having the connections she had. That she was also dealing with her daughter's serious illness just compounds my deep sympathy and admiration of her courage in sharing it all on the page.
5/5 Stars.
Wow. What a painful and powerful story. Their Eyes Were Watching God is about a naive but strong willed teenager, Janie Crawford who bows to her grandmother's influence and marries a man decades her senior. A former slave, her grandmother had visions and hopes for Janie that were different from Janie's own. And a loveless marriage makes Janie ache for those things she wants for herself. In order to find happiness she runs off with another man who promises her more freedom, only to find out that this man's definition of freedom is not her own. It is only as a wealthy but still young and beautiful widow that Janie meets Tea Cake, a young gambler who gives her a taste of the life she really wants. Their love story is simple and complicated at the same time. With great love comes great tragedy, and Hurston hits the notes perfectly.Years ahead of its time in themes of feminism, self-discovery, and self-determination for women, Janie is a force, an unforgettable heroine in the midst of lesser models.
4.5/5 Stars.
I'm torn on this review. I started out really liking this book, then it started to wear on me. Really really wear on me. And then it ended well enough. So this is probably a 3.5 Star review, for what it's worth.This is a classic YA coming of age story about June Elbus, 14 yo Renaissance fan and her dying uncle, Finn Weiss, who, in 1986 is dying from AIDS related complications. June and Finn have a special relationship which is full of inside jokes and stories. What doesn't work in this premise is the reliance on YA tropes. June is "quirky" and feels unloved and misunderstood (she's not). She thinks she's ugly and doesn't understand why anyone would like her (sigh). But Finn loves her, and she believes he loves her above all others. So she has a romantic crush on her own uncle, and she has a lot of self-loathing associated with this fact. When my sister and I were little, we spent weeks in the summer and over Christmas Break at my grandparent's house in Canada. My mom's much-younger brother still lived at home until my sister and I were approaching Tween years. We both loved him desperately. Not in the romantic way June feels about Finn, but close enough that the truth of love, and child love felt real about the book.In any case, Finn dies and June learns that he's had a boyfriend for nine years. Toby seeks June out to try to have a relationship with her - seeking kinship in the one other person he believes is grieving Finn's loss as much as he is. June is hurt to learn that Finn led another life separate from her. This is common enough for children on the brink of adulthood, to learn that the people they love have other lives and interests. But man does June take it hard. She becomes a paragon of self-absorption and jealousy. It's not pretty. And if I was just left with Carol Rifka Brunt's great phrasing, it may be okay, but it goes on too long, becomes too much. Poor Toby. He has no one, and Finn leaves a note for June, asking her take care of him. But instead of really feeling for the Toby character, I found him a little creepy, and their budding friendship, built on mutual grief, somehow never seemed to blossom to me. Toby gets June hooked on cigarettes and even gets her drunk. He's in his 40s. I think it's meant to show what a mess he is, but it's hard to really feel for an adult who lets a 14 year old get wasted on volcano bowls. In the background is June's malicious sister Greta, her uninvolved boring father, and her uptight vicious mother. None of these characters were endearing, except maybe toward the end, Greta became redeemable. The stuff this family was willing to say to each other, good god. There was a jot of jealousy flying around here and a lot of self-righteousness that got old and felt staged. In the end, it was just a bit much and took a lot of shine off an otherwise nice looking apple.
3.5/5 stars
I'd give this book a solid 3.75 stars. I liked Eilis (pronounced Eye-lish). I liked watching her "come of age" through the process of the book. I like how she makes decisions and isn't overly dramatic or needlessly whiny. She accepts her choices like an adult and makes the next step.
In this story, Eilis is the younger daughter to a widowed mother in Ireland. Smart, but slightly less beautiful than her older sister Rose, Eilis works hard at her studies trying to advance herself and her family's fortunes. When it becomes apparent that there is no work for Eilis in Ireland, her sister and mother make arrangements for Eilis to go to Brooklyn to work in a shop and hopefully take classes to become a book keeper.
Eilis suffers through a rough crossing, but once in America, gets on well at her job and eventually makes friends. She begins a relationship with an Italian plumber named Tony and corresponds with her sister Rose in secret because she's not quite ready to tell her mother that she's moved on from Ireland. Part of the time Eilis seems like she's inhabiting someone else's life in America, as if she's going through the motions of her day without thinking of who she is becoming. But eventually she starts to make decisions of her own and use her intellect to excel at school.
Following Rose's death, Eilis must decide if she will go back to Ireland to stay, or if she'll claim the new life she's made for herself in Brooklyn. In a very real question of whether you can go home again, Eilis is presented with what her alternative life would have been had she stayed in Ireland. And she has regrets on both sides of the decision.
Understated, yet understandable, the story of Eilis is the story of us all, growing up, making decisions, living with the consequences and deciding our own futures. The only complaints were some fairly plodding points in the story that got a little boring, and the fact that nothing ever seems to really happen to Eilis. The lack of drama makes it realistic, but sometimes a bit tedious.
3.75/5 Stars.
