Reactions, not ratings
The shelf.
I don't do star ratings.
Right now, in my bag
The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion
“I highlighted page 84 until it tore. Read it if you've ever wanted to be understood and terrified of it at the same time.”
Books that wrecked me
Handled with paper cuts
Ariel
Sylvia Plath
“The precision of her pain is almost surgical. Every line is a clean incision I didn't know I'd asked for.”
Gray's Anatomy
Henry Gray
“I keep going back for the hand. Twenty-seven bones, each a small miracle of leverage. Nobody writes love letters like anatomists.”
When Breath Becomes Air
Paul Kalanithi
“I finished it at 3 a.m. and sat on the kitchen floor for twenty minutes not moving. This is the book that made me stop performing my decision to study medicine and actually start meaning it.”
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath
“The fig-tree paragraph lives in my chest. I've read it out loud to three separate people who weren't asking.”
Being Mortal
Atul Gawande
“Changed the questions I want to ask patients someday. Which is the whole point of a book, if we're being honest.”
Bluets
Maggie Nelson
“Two hundred and forty short pieces about the color blue. I don't know how she made that hurt. She did.”