Sunday, August 02, 2015

BOOKS: THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING



Despite the fact that I used to read a lot, I didn't branch out into many genres. The idea of a non-fiction book about one woman's experience with grief likely would not have appealed to me much at all, and to be fair I actually was only introduced to this book through school. We were supposed to read this book in my medical anthropology course I took in my first year of university, and I vaguely remember skimming through it so I would be familiar with it for the exam but I didn't actually grasp anything specific from it. I picked this us right after finishing Marabou Stork Nightmares and yet it took me over six months to read its two hundred and twenty-seven pages but it was a heavy read so I felt like I needed to keep putting it down.

The story is told through a series of anecdotes about the past and present all surrounding the life and death of Joan Didion's husband and her process of understanding what happened the year following his death. I cried, and I smiled but what I really enjoyed about it was reading about how Didion was trying to explain the insane thoughts in her brain, while knowing they were irrational and being unable to stop them just the same. I really connected with that aspect of the book and of course it doesn't hurt the she is a wonderful writer with an incredible attention to detail.

Would recommnend? Absolutely

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