Maggie Nelson always does really interesting things with form in her books, and this was no exception. That being said, I wonder whether the poetry formatting was needed (in terms of line breaks) when each piece just read like prose poetry. I don’t say this as a criticism necessarily, as the line breaks didn’t lessen my reading experience, but just as a curious poet not entirely seeing what Nelson’s goal was.

This was a really memorable, impactful way to tell such a tragic story. I only wish it was a little longer (though I see, now, that Nelson has written another book related to Jane—maybe that will give me what I was hoping for with this). The question, now, is which  shelf to put this on: poetry, or non-fiction?