This book leaves marks. I can't imagine a situation in which this journal fragment can leave people indifferent.

This journal explores the evolution of Anaïs from what she interprets as a frustrated, passionless life through the storm that Henry Miller creates in her life. While the book begins with a somewhat naïve Anaïs, a book-loving bored and distant housewife, we become more intimate with her, exploring her desires, her indecision and her fears.

This transformation is actually the central point of the book, and Henry and June are just catalysts for her metamorphosis. Nin's love affair with June and then the full blown affair with Henry are, really just the setting for the evolution of Nin's character.

While I understand that this is her journal, I didn't really feel the honesty of it all. While the journal did explore her intimate thoughts, it feels like a small lie, the real Anaïs Nin still hidden from sight. It seems strange, deep intimacy explored in a shallow manner, but there it is. The journal stays honest to its form, and what it really lacks is the final touches of the writer. The journal is, perhaps, too raw, exploring the present day and not giving an insight, a deeper connection with the real Nin. There are places where this happens, where she tries to explore her past or dreams about the future, but those fragments are rare, and in the end they don't get anywhere.

Her superficial honesty is brutal. At times you feel sorry for the people around her, lured into the marshes of her unprincipled character. At times you cannot but empathize with her desires, her changing heart, while at other times you might find yourself judging for her going too far, or not far enough.

This book lacks depth that the touches of the writer would bring. Honest, intimate, yet superficial. I think it's a book that people must read; it is one of these books where the content doesn't matter that much, but how you place yourself, as a reader, relative to the book.