Through her memoir, You Could Make this Place Beautiful, American poet Maggie Smith has written her way through a painful divorce. Unsurprisingly to anyone who has read Smith’s poetry, the writing is beautiful, the conjured images are moving, and many lines were highlighted in the reading of this book.

Smith grants us an interesting and relatable look at the division of labor in a marriage and the struggle for a woman and mother to also pursue a successful career in a traditional heterosexual relationship. We see how once Smith’s poetry career takes off, her marriage founders. However, I think my favorite parts of this memoir showcase Smith’s relationship with her children, which is both fierce and extremely poignant. I really enjoyed reading about the ways they supported each other and found joy during the pandemic.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful has a unique structure, with purposeful repetition, and scenes that analyze each element of Smith’s situation as if it is a play. There are also sections in which Smith answers questions posed by an anonymous friend or the public. Smith regularly addresses the reader, telling us what she is willing and unwilling to share with us. Conceptually these sections were interesting, but I far preferred the vignettes of Smith and her family.

I closed this book feeling respect for Smith’s skill as a writer, sympathy for the terrible divorce she and her children experienced, and admiration for Maggie Smith as a person, who comes across as extremely likable in this memoir. I’m so glad this book deal helped Smith and her children keep their house after the divorce, and I wish we could get an epilogue that included her husband’s reaction to the publication of this book!

Thank you to Atria Books, One Signal Publishers, and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy of this memoir. It’s out now!

Maggie Smith in You Could Make This Place Beautiful weaves memories, poetry, raw honesty, and deep questioning into her window of pain. Writing about the death of her marriage, Smith invites the reader into her personal experience. Smith, the poet, captures the intense emotion of scorching betrayal, pain, and quiet, but strong, resolution to make something beautiful of the brokenness. I was drawn into Smith's honesty in respect to her children, her husband, herself. She doesn't dodge the difficult questions, even about herself. Anyone who has experienced loss will find gems of truth in this book. What Smith does is take the broken marriage and create something beautiful by sharing her experiences and wisdom. The reader gets to see the artist use and create from the shards of great loss.
I read the book in one day; I couldn't put it down. It's that good.
This reviewer received a copy from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow. This book, the words are beautiful. They will sit with me for a long time. I've highlighted so many amazing insights/quotes. I adored this book and it changed me.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith is a gorgeous, introspective look at divorce and finding yourself. Smith's writing is, as always, poignant, lyrical, and honest. There were so many times I found myself sighing or smiling because the writing incited that emotion in me. I loved her perspective and enjoyed the way that she moved through the memoir. There were often callbacks to earlier chapters and she moved from poem to prose seamlessly. It was really stunning!

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books, Atria/One Signal Publishers for the ARC - You Could Make This Place Beautiful is out now!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I like Maggie Smith's poetry, and there was a lot I liked about this book. There was also a lot of repetition and vagueness. It was strange to read a memoir that reveals very vulnerable things but then also makes a point to leave things out. It was painful to read at times. But also beautiful.

Poet Maggie Smith's memoir traces the end of her marriage, weaving in the history and the future while she acknowledges that any story is only one person's reality and experience.

Life, like a poem, is a series of choices.

In You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith recounts her painful, prolonged divorce and her marriage, which was ending as she wrote this memoir.

The book is made up of many short sections, and much of Smith's exploration is focused on the way in which she chooses to write about and present her situation--both of which seem fitting for a writer and poet.

I'm trying to get to the truth, and I can't get there except by looking at the whole, even the parts I don't want to see. Maybe especially those parts. I've had to move into--and through--the darkness to find the beauty.

Through tracing the framework of and the growth and change of her relationship, Smith also explores gender roles, womanhood, motherhood, fury, loss, and a new fire for looking out for one's self.

It's a mistake to think of my life as a plot, but isn't this what I'm tasked with now--making sense of what happened by telling it as a story?

While Smith focuses on aspects such as the increased understanding she gained about the longtime structure of her marriage--the give and take (or lack thereof), the power imbalance, the resentment, the unspoken yearnings--You Could Make This Place Beautiful is not a laying-bare of emotional turmoil, and in a way the writing about it feels like a somewhat dispassionate exercise despite the topic.

Yet her language is beautiful, evocative, and full of pain, resolve, reflection, anger, discovery, and resignation.

I hover like a camera on a boom over those two young people, just kids, and I pity them because they have no idea what's coming.

Smith deliberately presents the book not as a "tell-all" but a "tell-mine," repeatedly acknowledging that she can only tell her side of the story, built upon facts but only those she chooses to share; built on feelings, but only her feelings; built on resulting repercussions, but only those she chooses to acknowledge and share.

The author mentions much of the music she finds powerful and inspiring or comforting, and she references other poets' work and her own. I found myself noting and saving much of this gorgeousness.

This book is powered by questions, many of them unanswerable, so their fuel burns forever.

I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Atria Books.

This is a beautiful memoir about the pain of divorce, the journey to heal, and finding a new sense of self/family. Smith writes well about what happened -- she is a poet after all. But she is also aware of (and constantly questioning) HOW she tells this story. Even the danger of making it into one, and how that implies all the things we expect of a good story to have such as a plot, symbols, foreshadowing, etc. She plays with this how while never sacrificing the emotional quality of her pain or growth. She's also upfront about what she's not including and she anticipates questions a reader might have. (She does not, however, protect her ex-husband.and her anger is palpable.) Anyway, I loved it. And -- high praise -- it reminded me somewhat of In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado.

It’s tough to put a number rating to a memoir because the content is so personal, but I have to say that Maggie Smith has such a tender story and a unique voice. I can tell she’s a poet because there is a lyrical quality to how she strings words together. There’s vivid metaphors and heartfelt language but it also lends to the same experience as talking on the phone with one of your friends. Smith pulls comparisons and ideas which I never could’ve dreamed up. I found myself nodding along and reaching for pens/highlighters to annotate. My personal favorite was how she likened people to nesting dolls, but this book was full of heavy hitters.

If you are looking for a good memoir, pick this up! It’s an easy read and switches between short and extra short chapters. I would recommend reading this in chunks to give yourself time to chew on the content. Thanks NetGalley and Atria for the ARC!

Raw, heartbreaking, heart-opening and generous. If memoirists like Molly Wizenberg are up your alley, Maggie Smith's beautiful memoir will absolutely sing to you.

The narrator's life is comparable to that of her mother, with the exception that she attended college and graduate school, wrote her first book, got married at age twenty-eight, and gave birth to her children when she was in her thirties. The narrator was upset with herself for allowing this to happen since, despite this, the distribution of labor in their family revealed something different. They felt guilty for unintentionally teaching Violet and Rhett that caring for others was what women did.
The most crucial information in this work is that the author was the main caregiver and that the author's children thought their father's job was more "real" than their own since it took place outside the house. The main provider of our household's income, paying for both our living expenditures and our family's health insurance, was the author's spouse. The author thought she was in danger whenever her spouse had to travel for business and would pay for it by getting the quiet treatment or a frosty welcome when she got home. Is it natural for there to be a power disparity in a marriage when one partner makes more money than the other? the author asked readers.

Thanks Netgalley for giving out this book, this is an excellent piece. It has my five stars.

YOU COULD MAKE THIS PLACE BEAUTIFUL by Maggie Smith is a beautiful masterpiece. Smith is a poet who demonstrates an adeptness with shaping words, lines, and sentences on a page, and she converts to writing a memoir naturally. The repetition, the framing, the chapter breaks, the vulnerability -- all are artistically implemented, culminating in a powerful reading experience.

The title is taken from the closing line of her viral poem "Good Bones." As Smith's career took off, her marriage was falling apart. Infidelity, counseling, strained co-parenting, a worldwide pandemic, therapy: this is Smith's frank but measured take on that time. Her words are raw, and as she shares about the layered grief, the discoveries, the evolution, she reveals enough to be relatable but also protects the privacy of her family, no simple feat. Readers will ponder the tension in any relationship surrounding expectations and who is allowed and encouraged to take up time and space and who is typically expected to deal with all the details and any absence of theirs is seen as a burden; another unfortunate example of the mental load so often expected and shouldered by women.

Some memoirs are dry and self-aggrandizing with little to recommend themselves beyond some biographical details, but Smith exposes her heart, and her love for herself, her children, and her friends is fierce. Readers will find themselves wanting to comfort Smith and rooting for her to find wholeness. We see her blossoming and flourishing, navigating the balance of hating what transpired while acknowledging it has led to a life she loves. 

I am stingy in doling out five-star reviews, but this book is exceptional and I highlighted swaths of it. We're lucky to live in the same world as Maggie Smith.

(I received a digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.)

This book is stunning, heartbreaking and gorgeous. I’ll preface more review with the fact that I am a huge fan of Maggie Smith’s (I have a signed broadside of “Good Bones” framed in my yoga room). ”You Could Make This Place Beautiful” is a compelling memoir focused mainly on her divorce. It’s not written as poetry per se but the language is incredibly lyrical and beautiful. Divorce, particularly when kids are involved, is a sad, hard topic to talk about, but this book is hopeful and lovely. I would recommend it to anyone who feels like they are in a place emotionally where they feel like they can confront the inner workings of someone walking through the trauma of divorce.

Thank you to the publisher - I received a complimentary eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria/One Signal Publishers for the ARC.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Maggie Smith knows how to write exquisite sentences so in that regard this book is compelling. It’s a memoir of a divorce but the book relies way too heavily on repetition and belaboring the points she wants to make while eluding to points that we really would have benefitted from learning about. The focus here, on divorce and its aftermath is truly the focus of the memoir, but there are gaps in getting to the true story and focusing on the minute details that made me lose focus. I liked the structure she used with vignettes and quotations and musings and reflecting on her past writings, as this is where the book really landed for me. With more editing and focus, this would have really hit the mark for me.

Many thanks to NetGalley and One Signal Publishers/Atria for gifting me a digital ARC of this beautiful memoir by a favorite, Maggie Smith - 5 sparkling stars!

This book is a compilation of thoughts, essays, quotes, and so much beautiful prose all about the good, bad, and ugly of a life well lived so far. Keep Moving was Smith's journey through the ending of her marriage in poetry; here we get more of the story. But we don't get what we don't need - this is not a trash-the-ex book; it's one her children will read one day and underscore all that she did for them. I have purchased copies of Keep Moving and sent to grieving friends; You Could Make This Place Beautiful is for everyone. Because everyone has stuff they are dealing with. I will be going back and rereading this one many times. Highly recommended!

Powerful and effective, this book did make me feel beautiful and visible. Thank you Atria for the review copy.
You Could Make This Place Beautiful is a needed recognition that true beauty is in finding you again, to the power of grief but also the power reflection and openness to processing grief. I resonated with the complicated feelings with pregnancy loss and how that very lonely and personal experience is hard to explain and navigate with others, even partners and spouses. I appreciate that honesty, the writing is brave and can be so empowering and helpful to so many women.

I am beyond grateful to Atria for the review copy, thank you for entrusting me with a book that I read more to help process a friend going through a very complicated divorce and ended up being a book that helped me explore my own feelings around loss.

Not that Maggie Smith. The American one. This memoir by the poet Maggie Smith, who wrote the viral poems named in the title and Bride, is a story of a marriage falls apart and attempting to make sense of the collapse and to pick up the pieces afterward. Lyrical short essays blend with a few poems and reflections. Beautiful book. Please note that I was gifted a free arc of this book by NetGalley.

Heartbreaking and hopeful - Maggie Smith's writing is absolutely GORGEOUS and this book is so moving. She chooses every word with such intention. I really appreciated how she threaded the line between sharing so much and still protecting her kids. It gives such an intimate look at her life and experiences while still giving the other people in her life agency, a really rare gift in a memoir. Highly recommend!

This book was breathtaking– a memoir of a divorce, but so much more! Maggie Smith brings her poetic voice into these stories cut from life bookmarked along the way with questions that provide an opportunity to pause and connect. If you are into self-reflection and poetic language or are simply nosey and want to glimpse into the life of another, this book is for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for sending me an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Look for it in your local and online bookstores and libraries on 4/11/23.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Maggie Smith is an American poet, and she has written a beautiful and heartbreaking memoir about love, marriage, motherhood, and divorce. The chapters range from short to very short, as if each chapter is a poem. I prefer prose to poetry, but I didn’t mind this author’s poetic style because her book is so lyrical and beautifully written. It’s also raw and angry, private and hopeful. I will probably take a look at some of her other books.

Thank you to Net Galley, Atria Books, and Maggie Smith for an ARC of this book.

Like most of the world, I fell in love with Maggie Smith's writing when she wrote "Good Bones", so I was eager to read her memoir. It is the story of life through the ugly process of divorce, finding beauty wherever possible, and it is both intimate and guarded. Her love for her children, her family, and herself is clear. I loved the quotes and poetry that was interspersed throughout the story. So good.