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Monday, June 30, 2025

REVIEW - The Year of Magical Thinking (audiobook)

 


The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (audiobook)


OVERVIEW

This is my first and last book by Joan Didion. Honestly, I do understand why she is so revered, as I found her writing to be boring, self-important, and self-aggrandizing.  

Apparently, she was part of the New Journalism literary trend in the 1960s and 1970s. I didn't like any of the other authors that I am aware of in this trend. Interesting. 


OVERALL REVIEW: 3.0 stars

 

Writing: 2.5 stars

Joan's writing is just not for me. It is the lack of description, repetition, and sparseness. She writes like a journalist, and I don't read books for that - I read the newspaper.

Additionally, the place-dropping, name-dropping, and event-dropping were tedious and overdone. For me, I didn't have a clue who these people were, so it was unnecessary. 


Narration: 3.0 stars

The narration was not done by Joan, which is what I prefer. 

I felt that the narration was emotionless and flat, considering the subject matter of death and grief. 


Character development: 3.0 stars

The main characters are Joan (the author), John (her husband), and Quintana (her daughter).     

The secondary characters are Gerry (Quintana's husband), friends and family of the Didion/Dunn family, and the medical professionals. 

The tertiary character is death and grief. 

There is a huge cast of "famous" friends, but I really didn't know who they all were and really didn't care.  

The character development was poor. The three main characters seemed shallow, boring, and self-important. 


Memorable3.0 stars

What I remember from this book is that money doesn't buy happiness. Also, death and grief affect everyone in different ways. Joan wrote this book as a way to process her personal grief, but her writing about it didn't work for me. 


Entertaining/Educational:  2.5 stars

There really wasn't anything entertaining or educational. 


Book cover: 3.0 stars

Spare and boring like the book.  

 

Book title: 4.0 stars 

The best part of the book. 


Lukewarm recommend


Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) borrow: audiobook

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

5 hours, 5 minutes 

HughBridge

Release date: 9/30/2005

 

INFORMATIONAL LINKS

Joan Didion

Goodreads review

The Storygraph review

HughBridge

Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL)


TRIGGER WARNINGS: Death, grief, medical content, medical trauma, mental illness. 


Happy reading, 

Dorothea 💜


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