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A review by brice_mo
Abandon Me: Memoirs by Melissa Febos
3.5
Melissa Febos’s Abandon Me feels underbaked and overwritten, and I think that tension means its title will hit readers very differently—either as an invitation or a challenge.
I mean, my favorite part of a brownie is the underbaked part, but maybe you’re an edges person.
These are gorgeously written essays, and Melissa Febos has an amazing sense of when to withhold or release a turn. She practically dances through the form as someone who has rehearsed enough to make improvisation look effortless.
That said, Febos often seems more concerned with how an experience fits in a sentence than with how it fits in a life. These essays showcase open-ended wounds, and they frequently serve to pick at scabs in lieu of stitching them shut. It can be rough.
In conversation with Body Work, I interpret Abandon Me as highlighting how life is lived in a state of constant revision, but I think there are very fair critiques to be made about the author’s moral ambivalence. I think it serves the project, but that’s subjective.
I’m guessing that readers’ enjoyment will depend on how they feel about the following question:
Can pain be art without an obligatory answer?
Febos seems to think so.
I mean, my favorite part of a brownie is the underbaked part, but maybe you’re an edges person.
These are gorgeously written essays, and Melissa Febos has an amazing sense of when to withhold or release a turn. She practically dances through the form as someone who has rehearsed enough to make improvisation look effortless.
That said, Febos often seems more concerned with how an experience fits in a sentence than with how it fits in a life. These essays showcase open-ended wounds, and they frequently serve to pick at scabs in lieu of stitching them shut. It can be rough.
In conversation with Body Work, I interpret Abandon Me as highlighting how life is lived in a state of constant revision, but I think there are very fair critiques to be made about the author’s moral ambivalence. I think it serves the project, but that’s subjective.
I’m guessing that readers’ enjoyment will depend on how they feel about the following question:
Can pain be art without an obligatory answer?
Febos seems to think so.