This behemoth of a book wears you down a bit. I started off loving it, and while I never stopped liking it, I did lose momentum. The notebook sections especially got to be a chore after a while. As I see it, all of Anna's notebooks are essentially asking "who AM I?...I'm a writer. If I'm not a writer, I'm Michael's mistress...If I'm not Michael's mistress, I'm a communist...If I'm not a communist, I'm...a woman?" And then the word "woman" is underlined, circled, and surrounded by question marks and exclamation points and a scribbled "but what does that even mean?!" And then she, as they say, cracks up.