It feels cruel to give a memoir such a low rating, especially such a raw piece about someone’s grief. I almost didn’t want to rate it at all. But these ratings are purely for personal logging, so here’s an honest review. Please forgive me Joan Didion 🙏

I did not really like this book… and it would’ve been a DNF if it weren’t for the fact that I was annotating it for julia’s birthday (I wanted to pick a book we both hadn’t read). And I guess it was my fault for going into this with an expectation. The title made me expect lessons and epiphanies in grief, but instead, I was faced with loadsssss of trauma that was triggering. Maybe it would’ve been a different experience if I hadn’t faced a sudden passing in my life as well, but I don’t know..

It is definetely a raw, realistic record of what it feels like to be faced with such sudden loss. This was written in the early stages of her grief and a lot of it is written in a way that reflects the grieving mind. It is really well done, and it’s rare you hear/read someone’s experience of grief while they’re actually experience it. 

it was just soooo  depressing and dark. I guess you can say that’s the “reality” of grief, but it depends. Grief is complex and a different experience for every single person grieving and for every person that you grieve. Sometimes you might find your experience reflected back to you, and other times, you'll feel like you’ve been doing something wrong. You can’t win because we all experience emotions, especially grief, differently. It’s is an experience that is unique to your character and to the person that you lost. Although, a lot of this was still relatable and I caught myself thinking “so I’m not crazy for thinking this way” and that was really nice :,)

I think I’m one of the few people who didn’t like this book, but I really commend Joan didion for writing and publishing this because it is RAW (as I keep saying, but it’s the only word to describe it). It must’ve been extremely healing for her to write. Maybe I didn’t love it because it sometimes hit too close to home, and I was reminded of things I didn’t want to be reminded of, things I didn’t think were necessary to linger on anymore.  

 I hope this isn’t too harsh ,  this topic is soooo delicate