How does one even write a book like this, so haunting and beautiful, full of love and grief? 
How does Maggie Nelson walk around with so much talent in her, without its sheer heaviness dragging her down?

For a book about a rape-murder within the family, it is not as dense as I expected and surprisingly easy to get through. It is not conventional poetry, more like a story written in verse.   

I read this in an hour and a half, wich doesn't happen to me really often, but this was just so beautiful. The writing was amazing and for me, someone who barely reads poetry, also easy to understand, but at the same time it wasn't too simple. 
Maybe I just read it too fast, but I didn't feel that much of a connection to Jane throughout the book, wich I thought was kinda disappointing, but that was really the only thing I didn't like. Amazing book, and got me out of a reading slump so plus points for that.

Truly unlike anything else I've ever read. Maggie Nelson is one of the best writers of our time, the way she put together this book is so perfect and unique. Incredible and heartbreaking.

As someone who enjoys the occasional true crime, I have noticed that books dealing with real life murder tend to reduce the victims to just victims. Even if some time is given to victims' lives, their lives are often framed as though they were fated to be murdered. What I appreciate about Maggie Nelson's Jane: A Murder is that its about reconstructing Nelson's aunt Jane. Nelson is trying to get to know and understand a woman she has never met but whose life and presence is felt in Nelson's life. By using excerpts of Jane's journal, we do not meet someone who has be rendered angelic, too good for this world, by tragedy and memory, but rather a person flawed and full of life. The greatest mystery is not who murdered her, but rather the mystery that all people carry, who she is.