A really beautiful collection of myriad thoughts, not so much an autobiography as a 'récit', stories that make up a life. Sincere while remaining funny in a way that doesn't discredit emotion.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley.

Like many people, I loved the author's essay, The Crane Wife. I was hoping the rest of the book would have the same insightful and funny writing. There were indeed pockets of that, but many of the essays strongly evoked the navel-gazing of a college admissions essay. Although the book itself was not long, parts felt very unnecessary and dragged out on a whim. While this is billed as a memoir in essays, I believe the memoir and story aspect of it is missing, leaving it as more of a memoir in fragments.

Overall, it seems as though there wasn't enough material for a full book, and I began to skim through large parts.

I'm sorry, CJ Hauser. I was wrong.

When I was about halfway through this book, I was already preparing to Not Like It. At least, I was feeling some very uncomfortable feelings whilst reading these personal essays, and because of that I thought I don't like how this is making me feel therefore it is a BAD BOOK. Looking back, my initial gut reaction to Hauser's work is embarrassing to me. I physically had to sit down and look myself in the eye and say HEY! Just because a book stirs unwanted feelings does not make it not worth reading! In fact, books like these are always worth discussing. Full stop and intense reflection. This was not an easy thing for me to do.

I racked my brain as to why this book was causing me so much turmoil to read. The prose is exceptional and the craft is outstanding. I love creative writing! But I could not put my finger on why these essays bothered me so much. At first, I thought some essays were more redundant than others. And maybe that's true, maybe not. But that was simply an excuse I conveniently came up with to justify me docking off technical points when I eventually rated this book out of 5 stars on Goodreads. No. That was not the real reason. It all came down to one thing: vulnerability.

I thought I knew what it was like to be vulnerable. I do not. I can say with full certainty that I one hundred percent do not know anything about being vulnerable. CJ Hauser is vulnerable. Their vulnerability is so intense that it physically made me recoil as I stormed my way through this memoir (nice job on that by the way!). These essays were never "redundant." They were incredibly well written, thoughtful, and above all completely and utterly honest. And that scared me. These pages only held up a mirror that reflected a fact that I know is true deep down but I refused to admit to myself until now: that I am a coward, and have never been brave enough to be fully vulnerable with anyone other than myself.

Once I reached the end it was safe to assume that this book was life altering for me. It helped remind me to open up not only as a writer, but as a human being too. So in short: I'm sorry, CJ Hauser. And thank you. Stories like yours need to be heard above the noise.

This is such an excellent collection of essays. I read The Crane Wife essay in 2019, and loved it so much. This collection is wonderful, full of truths, beautiful prose, and honesty.