Court
This book is important, and briefly introduces to (young) audiences the life of an important woman.
I understand the title and theme of the book, but do wish that they also talked about how she agreed, her value of unity, how one can dissent or disagree in a manner that is respectful and in a way that uses reasoning.
I understand that it is a children's book, but I would hate for one to read this to a young child and the take away to be “she's famous for disagreeing” or “it's ok for me to scream no”.
I also would have appreciated the use of the word woman, rather than girl after a certain point. Girls, more often than not, do not go to college, women do.
Generally I liked this. The title is a little misleading, although that's not a drawback. It's more about Inman's perspective on happiness and how he doesn't have a generally upbeat attitude, and is okay with that. It's interesting, or rather it gave me something to mentally chew on. I agree that with Inman that happy/unhappy is a false dichotomy and assume that I would also find his views on optimism and pessimism interesting.
Also reminded me of my longtime friend. We had a reoccurring conversation comparing and juxtaposing “happy/happiness” and “content/contentment” 😁
Very enjoyable.
Great foundation, early on she directly states that it's a memoir, how that differs from a biography, and that she's not going to discuss her time on the Supreme Court. The furthest point in time that she talks about is her acceptance of her current position. That really helped adjust my expectations and put me in the right mindset for her story.
I liked the perspective she loaned me as a technical outsider to her culture/background, and enjoyed her description of her childhood and college experiences. I also liked her commentary on womanly style mostly on the topic of fashion sense, who had a sense of style and how she late in developing one; I wasn't expecting it, but also realized the RBG referenced this in the biopic I saw earlier this month, and the connection as well as the actual content made me smile.
I appreciated her writing style in that it did not rely on exaggeration or hyperbole, because it made her more reliable. I felt that I could trust her. Even when she was talking about her mother's withdrawal from the family, I felt that she in no way exaggerated what happened, that she was telling it how it was.
It's an anthology, and I'm starting to believe that you're not supposed to like everything in one because it is purposely a buffet and presents a wide range. My only complaint was that some font was hard to read, and in the case of William Blake's Jerusalem—illustrated by Blake— I couldn't read much of the lovely, stylized script.
Cute, it made me smile.
As I was digitally flipping through, I daydreamed about having a physical copy of it for the front room and having friends note down their moments of that particular happiness, at least for the major, unique, and/or idiosyncratic instances of happiness. I mentally placed friends and loved ones' names by the joys I associated them with. Which, in my imagination, turned the book into both a conversational piece and a tome of personal stories, some merely anecdotal and others part of family legacy.
I had a long, heartfelt, time consuming review that was part love letter part rant, but I am tired and I think that Alex McKenna was fantastic.
It was fantastic, but then cliche and I wanted to cry.
Maybe I will try to revive my previous review but it might be healthier to let it go.
I would consider listening again to the first part, but right now I feel like the book broke up with me, it made lovely promises and was so good at whispering sweet-nothings, but ultimately disappointment.
Ugh! I thought this was an interesting premise, but it's so poorly executed — it feels lazy and noncommittal.
The law “In Maine it is illegal to mail prescription drugs unless you are a licensed pharmacist” isn't a strange law...unless I'm missing something.
And then “In Massachusetts photographing up skirt photos may be considered a crime” how loosely is that worded and again, not strange.
