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Bezig met laden... Half a Life: A Memoir (editie 2011)door Darin Strauss
Informatie over het werkHalf a Life door Darin Strauss
Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Deze bespreking is geschreven voor LibraryThing Vroege Recensenten. I did review this book 10 years ago when I received it and do not understand why now with the new system it show up as thought I did not do so. In the past it showed up as reviewed. this is confusing to me. I flew through this book and really wavered on whether to give it three or four stars. The first half--which is to say, the first 90-odd pages--is compelling reading. The second half meanders and becomes repetitive and a bit dull, although the writing is elegant and beautiful throughout. I agree with some other reviewers that the author is overly anxious that we see him as a good person; he is clearly a good person and the accident was clearly not his fault. Just as clearly, he still harbors more guilt over it than he seems willing to admit. I also thought he was a bit hard on himself throughout--he was eighteen, of course he was worried about what other people would think of him; this doesn't make him a bad person or even particularly self-centered.
"A book that inspires admiration, sentence by sentence . . . This is a memoir in its finest form, a fully imagined and bittersweet book." "Lyrical and haunting." "Elegant, painful, stunningly honest . . . huge [and] heartbreaking." PrijzenOnderscheidingen
Half a life after he killed a girl riding her bike with his car as a teenager, the author delves into the meaning and consequences of that fateful day, and all the culpability, anguish, and regret that continue to penetrate his every thought. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
Deelnemer aan LibraryThing Vroege RecensentenDarin Strauss's boek Half a Life was beschikbaar via LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Actuele discussiesGeenPopulaire omslagen
Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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But considering that he mainly wrote this book for himself, that is okay. I hope he found whatever he was looking for in this book. And yet... I found the entire book a bit crass. The one moment that stuck with me was when Strauss's date berated him for thinking about himself rather than thinking about Celine. I think that if she had read this book, his date would say the same thing again. While it was very introspective about his feelings and guilt, and how the accident impacted him, there was very little thought given to how the accident affected other people other than when those other people directly interacted with him. The whole thing came off as rather selfish, and the publication of the book very self-serving. Strauss talks about how he could never open up in therapy, so he took to writing it down. I understand that writing is cathartic and healing. But then to publish it just strikes me as profiting from Celine's death.
Review copy courtesy of the publisher. ( )