The Year of Magical Thinking

WHY I'M READING THIS

I return to this book roughly once a year, usually without planning to — it tends to find me during specific kinds of weeks.

WHAT I UNDERLINED

“"Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it."”

WHAT I THINK

Didion's precision is the whole argument. Grief resists language, and this is a book that refuses to let that be an excuse for vagueness.

QUESTIONS IT LEFT ME WITH

What's the difference between processing something and simply describing it exactly enough times?

WHERE IT LED ME

A permanent change in how carefully I try to describe difficult things, rather than gesturing at them.