EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club discussion

This begins our group discussion of our Modern book selection, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, nominated by Renata.

This discussion will be full of SPOILERS.

Did you enjoy the book? What stood out to you? Did Didion’s brutal honesty resonate with you? Did you find yourself connecting with her experience, or find it too uncomfortable? Are you aware of engaging in any “magical thinking” as you read through her experience? What questions were you left with?

I always hesitated to start this book, now decided to do so thanks to this group. I'm only 2 chapters in, but I can already tell is going to impact me big time...!

When Joan describes the feeling of searching ways to "fix" or "take back" what had happened to her husband, I can relate as I experienced myself that type of numb confusion feeling in your brain when you've lost a loved one, specially when it happens so suddenly, as if there's something that you could do that would solve everything and bring that person back to you. I will continue reading and sharing my thoughts! :)

This is a memoir of grief. A few days after her adult daughter is hospitalized in a coma, Joan's husband dies of a massive heart attack. The writing has fine enough. What I learned was rich people view everything from a very different lens.

My adult daughter was once in a serious car accident as she headed back to her home hundreds of miles away. She was still fairly close to us (perhaps 30 miles) so it made it easy for us to care for her. When the subject comes up, I count our blessings how it was not worse. Mostly physically, but also financially and logistically. I also mention the unfortunate people who are a thousand miles from home and have to get a hotel for weeks, and find a way to home and pay for it all. When Joan's daughter recovered from the initial hospital stay, she headed from New York to California and was hospitalized there. While there, the author talked about the fabulous restaurants she went to with her rich and famous friends. Yes, she has to eat, and it was nice she had time away from the hospital. My point is this: is you do not have a lot of money, you worry about other people who do not have a lot of money and how one disaster could ruin them.

Her memories are peppered with name dropping and flying from LA to San Francisco for dinner. Her days with her daughter are trips to Hawaii. Mine are far more humble. I think of water fights when my daughters filled the yard with other kids and had a blast. After everybody was soaked, I brought out a snack and everybody was happy for $20. I guess rich people are just different. They talk about money and what it buys them.

2023 was a really rough year for me, my grandfather who I was very close to passed away in January, one of my best friends died suddenly and very unexpected in April, and we lost our 15 year old dog whom my husband and I had for our entire relationship in September. I was in grief all year long and still am mourning to this day. I found this book very relatable and honest. I like how she really focuses on how lost we feel when we experience grieving. How it is such a personal feeling that often we cut everyone in our lives off to some extent so we are able to process our losses alone. In both those ways experiencing a death is very ironic, this book made me think about that a lot. She did a ton of research into grieving (which I did not do at all) and I found some of the things she brought up very interesting and helpful to my own recovery. I certainly think it was an effective way to process her emotions during that period in her life. I wasn't sure if I was ready for this book going into it, but I am really happy I did. I would definitely not recommend reading this if you recently lost someone, but coming up on the 2 year anniversaries of many deaths in my own life I found this book very helpful and almost comforting in a way.

Jan wrote: "This is a memoir of grief. A few days after her adult daughter is hospitalized in a coma, Joan's husband dies of a massive heart attack. The writing has fine enough. What I learned was rich people ..."

I largely agree with what you are saying. I found myself thinking a couple of times while reading how much more stressful that whole year of her life would have been if she were not wealthy to begin with. I didn't particularly like all the name drops either and really don't think they added anything to the book.