The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

Last book review of 2013! Hoo boy.

I should have been doing my homework instead of reading this. #whateva

Genre: Memoir

Rating: ★★★

Published: December 13, 2007

Publisher: Vintage International

Pages: 227

Before reading The Year of Magical Thinking, the only other work I had read by Joan Didion was her essay, "On Self-Respect," during my senior year English class. I decided that I liked her voice, thought she was funny, etc... but totally forgot about it once I exited the classroom. This year, I've been trying to expand my reading horizons and search for new authors in the big, wide, world of "adult" fiction. Joan Didion seemed to be a good person to look for, since I'd seen some interviews with her featured on websites that I liked. I picked up The Year of Magical Thinking because I had seen it around, and had decided that it was a good place to start. (Also, the school library copy of Slouching Towards Bethlehem looked like it was about to fall apart.)

The Year of Magical Thinking, is (according to the back of the book) "a portrait of a marriage." Hm. Okay. Yes, it is. But I feel like that description is somewhat misleading, because The Year of Magical Thinking is primarily about grief, grieving, and death. It illustrates the year after Joan Didion's husband died, as well as her different trains of thought/personal vortexes that lead her to reflect upon her grief and their marriage.

I really liked Didion's style of writing; I found it to be humorous, wry, and insightful. I feel like I have a good grasp on her person voice as a result of reading this book. That said, I rated it three stars. Not because I disliked any parts, but because - while I felt that it was quite powerful - it did not have its full intended effect on me because I have not experienced the loss of a spouse. I was, despite that, able to connect to a fair amount of what she said about revisiting death, as well as the nature of grief:

“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it...We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe their husband is about to return and need his shoes.”

(I already returned the book to the library, so here's an excerpt via Goodreads. Plz work with me.)

If pressed, I'd probably rate this book higher; as it is, I'm just glad to have this review done with now. I'd recommend it to others, but I would prefer to warn people that the focus of this book is on death and grief, just in case that's something that someone is trying to avoid completely.

Hopefully my next review won't be so long overdue; I need to work on drafting some of my reviews faster!