Koestenbaum is brilliant. I was first introduced to her work by my advisor Maggie Nelson, and I'm grateful for it. What a singular mind.

Figure It Out is a collection of nonfiction essays by Wayne Koestenbaum depicting various “collisions” in everyday life, including running into a man on the train with a leather bracelet, subtle lamentations about playing piano and attending his grandfather’s funeral just to name a few. In fully transparency, I don’t read many essay collections and didn’t quite know what to expect when I began reading Figure It Out but I really enjoyed the various essays as I felt like they each shared profound and often poetic allegories and analogies for life as well as sharing insightful life lessons and ideas of how to live a better life. I didn’t enjoy all of the essays and to be honest I struggled through a few of them because I wasn’t following the point of the essay but overall I really enjoyed this book and I liked reading the various essays in between other books that I happened to be reading at the time.

I would have loved to be able to share this book on my blog and social channels, however, without having a physical copy, I wasn’t able to take proper photos. I hope this review is helpful and I’ll be sure to share it on Goodreads, Amazon and Google.

Thank you for the advanced digital copy!

Thank you to Soft Skull Press and NetGalley for providing me with a review copy of this book! It will be published May 5, 2020.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this book, although they net positive. There’s no doubt that Wayne Koestenbaum is whip smart, astute, and well written. The book’s not long, but it features quite a few essays, divided into several smaller sections. They have lots of different formats and structures, ranging from critique of culture to journal observations to artistic exercise instruction.

I just don’t necessarily think I was this book’s best reader. I wasn’t very familiar with a lot of the people Koestenbaum referenced or critiqued, so those essays were hard for me. I was also glad to be reading on an ereader with a dictionary functionality, because he uses a lot of intense vocabulary words. And yet other essays drew me in and held me there; I particularly liked the ones where he provided writing exercises, the opening essay about chance encounters with two people in NYC, the one about his piano, and the one about words and grammar.

I think ultimately, this book is worth picking up for the moments that will shine for you — and there will be some. Just don’t be afraid to bounce around from essay to essay if you need to.

Fantastic engaging so well written .Essays that will engage you take you on an imaginative ride.An essayists that never fails to engage me as I go on a wild read .#netgalley#counterpointpress.

Any book by Koestenbaum is a dip into his kaleidoscopic mind, where we might encounter anything from musings on size queens to anecdotes about encounters on the subway to beards to art to music to celebrities to fashion to imaginary events and dreams. This collection brings together essays, lists, journal entries, and other short writings that provide the reader with an excellent overview of Koestenbaum's mostly omnivorous thoughts (although there is a definite focus on white people, Jewishness, men, and gay idols) about his life and life in general. If you can overlook what is omitted and revel in what he does think about and how he does it, this latest entry into the Koestenbaum library is dazzling and thoughtful and entertaining and frustrating and a good sampler of his work.

I was entertained, engaged, and mesmerized by Figure It Out. These essays are insightful and serve as a wonderful example of this form.