Deeply moving. Loved it. Highly Recommend. Can't say enough good things about it. Wanted to soak up all of her words.

This memoir resonated with me as a fellow freelance writer for magazine articles and books. Levy's journey of life, love, and loss is powerfully told, sometimes too personally as she explores her sexuality, her monogamy, her marriage, and her subjects for her New Yorker profile pieces. She purposely focuses on people who challenge our notions and assumptions, such as transgender athletes and gay Republicans. But what makes her story significant is how she ties her stories back to her own journey and life decisions. I highly recommend this book.

I read this book in order to interview the author when her memoir came out. As a long time fan of Ariel Levy, her memoir was everything I expected it to be: frank, funny, engrossing and superbly crafted. I swallowed it in two sittings over the course of a single day. As a journalist it resonated with me deeply, in addition to of course being a well-told, deeply personal story. The interview was published in an Indian news weekly that I regularly contribute to, along with my thoughts on the book: https://openthemagazine.com/lounge/books/ariel-levy-she-is-her-own-story/

I was very conflicted reading this memoir. On one hand, I enjoyed the humor and levity that the author gave to what is a very real personal trauma. I could see her as one of my girlfriends telling me her story over a coffee. However, like many other reviewers I have a hard time with the limited point of view of the author. She is a great writer, and her abilities pull the reader into the narrative and create empathy via the often beautiful words on the page. But, when you finish, you pull back and wonder how you were so invested in a memoir with only moderate substance.

Great memoir, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ariel Levy is a great writer, and the story telling was very emotional. You'll laugh, you'll smile, you'll cry, you might even be angry, but you'll enjoy every word on the pages.

A stressful childhood, a broken marriage, a complicated pregnancy. These are just some of the hot spots of Ariel Levy' s memoir. There are candid parts but it felt like Levy was holding back emotionally. That may be due to the pervasive tell all of today's news and literary cycle. Otherwise, well written and easy to read.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

Although the author’s description of her miscarriage was terribly heartbreaking, I did not really care for this book so I will not be reviewing it online.

This is basically a book about a self- indulgent person who makes a lot of bad choices in life. But nevertheless, the reader develops a relationship with writer. I was very pleased with the ending.

I had read Levy's New Yorker piece, so I was super interested in learning more of the story.

Thank you for the chance to review this book, however, unfortunately, I was unable to read and review this title before it was archived.

Ariel Levy is my new girl crush - I love her!
When I finished her memoir, I didn't realize it was over until I saw the author's bio and I thought "What?! No!" then I felt like crying .
Her writing is so good that her life reads like an interesting story. She is really a free spirit. She comes out as a lesbian after college and gets married to an older woman and gets pregnant by her friends sperm. So, she has it all, great job, loving spouse, apartment in NYC and a house on Shelter Island, pregnant, then she travels overseas for work and loses the baby and her whole life falls apart - She does seem to get hung up on being gay, as if that is the only thing that defines her, I believe a lot of her pieces for The New Yorker magazine are about the sexes, so I guess that is her specialty.
I'm not giving anything away that she doesn't already say in the first chapter, so please read this book.

Too much drinking, too much infidelity, not enough insights.
I dislike when authors assume "everyone" acts or thinks like they do, as if that gives them an excuse to act in certain ways. Why do they presume that?

Wow, this was NOT what I was expecting. I only vaguely knew what this was about when I requested it, so I kind of went into this blind and all I can really say is-Wow! It is at times really hard to read, it is very emotional. It is expertly written which makes it very interesting to really see into this person's life and truly care. Definitely an experience to read it.

Often times, the books that capture my attention and hold it are the ones that expose the messiness of life. Not revel in it, per se, but shines a light on complexity, nuance, failures, obtuseness, denial, and all the things that make us fallible humans. This book has that in spades. The carefree and untethered glee of the early 20s when the world was uncomplicated and wide open. The settling down and finding new ways of engaging in the world into one's 30s. The mistakes and hubris of thinking that everything will work out fine. The painful lessons learned when that is not the case- in the worst ways possible. It all felt very familiar and yet deeper.

I am always drawn to complicated women in books and Ariel is that. As is her spouse and life. But this memoir is written with what appears to be unflinching honesty. As in life, there are no heroes- only people struggling to make it- love, career, motherhood, family, money, etc.

I recommend this book to anyone who may need to find comfort in tragic loss, who is grappling with messy lives, or someone whose life may be too buttoned up and they want to voyeuristically experience freedom free of similar consequences. Fans of well-written memoirs may also like this book. I also think this may be relevant for Gen X women, as it seems to resonate with a lot of the contradictions we may be feeling and experiencing now.

One of those memoirs you will want to finish in one read! Ariel miscarries, goes through a divorce and loses her home all in go and finds that life does not always follow the script you thought you were following!

"Daring to think that the rules do not apply is the mark of a visionary. It's also a symptom of narcissism."

I didn't know much about Ariel Levy before reading this memoir. But I was so impressed by her writing style and vocabulary usage. Any books that are so well-written get high marks from me. This memoir deals with some painful losses, her childhood, her early writing years, and the history of her relationships. It was such a delight. It's heartbreaking and so full of honesty, self-awareness, and hope. It also has dashes of needed humor! I have to admire how Levy bared her soul in this book and continued to critique her own mistakes. She is so incredibly candid and I admired her for it.

The main thing I didn't enjoy was the messiness of the end of the book. But I won't soon forget this book or Levy's story.

Hmm, hard to rate this one. Some of the writing is quite good, but this book just felt a little... self indulgent, maybe? A strange criticism for a memoir perhaps since by definition a memoir is always going to be a book about the writer, but that is the feeling it gave me - other than the searingly powerful section about having a late-term miscarriage in Mongolia, much of the rest of the book is just a pretty ordinary story about an ordinary life, which no amount of pretty sentences can disguise. The author is pretty tough on herself, but it also seems strange to portray herself in such an unflattering light in much of the book (unless she is not even aware of how she comes across which is an interesting question). 2.5 stars.

There is no doubt in my mind that Ariel Levy is an excellent writer, I just found too many of these essays disconnected and unfocused. While I could appreciate the way she told some specific stories from her lifetime, there wasn't anything else that I could appreciate.

Everything else is DRIPPING with entitlement and privilege. As a 30 something year old rich white women who is living in NYC, she lives the type of life where she actually believes that she can control everything. There is lots of self-pity and bad decision making filled throughout this book, and I couldn't believe some of the things that I was reading:

[quote]"We [Ms. Levy and her female friends] lived in a world where we had control of so much. If we didn't want to carry groceries up the steps, we ordered them online and waited in our sweatpants on the fourth floor for a man from Asia or Latin America to come panting up, encumbered with our cat litter and organic bananas. [...] Anything seemed possible if you had ingenuity, money, and tenacity." (page 10)


One specific thing that bothered me in this passage was when she said "waited...for a man from Asia or Latin America to come to pant up." Gee, Levy thanks for pointing out one thing about all food delivery people that are "apparently" one of those ethnicities-(this also implies that they're all service jobs people) There is such white privilege showing here, that at some parts I actually couldn't stand it.

[quote]"I wanted what she [my mother] had wanted, what we all want: everything. We want a mate who feels like family and a lover who is exotic, surprising. We want to be youthful adventurers and middle-aged mothers. We want intimacy and autonomy, safety and stimulation, reassurance and novelty, coziness and thrills." (page 90)


If you didn't know, I'm asexual and aromantic and there is very blatant aro/acemisia in the text there I was just straight out cringing at.I've never wanted a mate/lover, I've never wanted to be middle-aged mother, so making this sweeping generalization is simply inaccurate at the least, and infuriating at the most. Why does Levy assume that this is everyone's universal desires at the expense of erasure for other people who don't want these things?

She also has a very misguided definition of feminism, that isn't inter-sectional at the very least but that she twists to serve her own points and purposes. At some point I literally had to book this book away for my mental health because it was bothering and hurting me that much.

In my opinion, the strongest chapters were those where she vividly describes her miscarriage in grotesque detail. They way that she knows how to write grief in such a blunt and honest way is truly astounding. However, lots of the other content, whether Levy realizes or not, she painted herself in a very bad light because of the things that she says or tries but fails to explain.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.**

Amazing writing on a sentence level, beautiful personal stuff, last few chapters a bit of a mess. Also the beginning is indeed fraught with some unexamined Privileged White Lady.

But this is a very good book all the same. I found myself highlighting a bunch of quotes on love, grief, messy feelings. It's still very much worth one's time, despite the handful of problems.