sacredness in sadness

Starting this collection and realizing that a vast majority of its essays focused on pretty sad topics wasn't exactly encouraging. There's a sacred place to hold sadness in writing, though. This truth helped me realize that I could address this collection of great works with a certain kind of respect and appropriate attitude to enjoy them for what they brought to the literary table. Several essays earned 5 stars on my personal rating scale for a variety of reasons. Vauhini Vara's "Ghosts" stands as one of the first essays to experiment with how emerging AI technology can influence as well as be incorporated in the process of human storytelling. Its structure is fascinating, and the use of subtext is admirable. Alex Marzano-Lesnevich's "Futurity" offered me glimpses into the reality of someone grappling with the process of transitioning and identity. Naomi Jackson's "Her Kind" is raw in its descriptions of the ups and downs of a woman trying to figure out why she's behaving in ways that hurt herself as well as others, getting at the heart of how mental health issues rarely make perfect sense. And the ending sentence is so cool. Calvin Gimpelevich's "Among Men" offers yet another testament to the unique experience of transition, focusing on gender roles, the social implications that can follow not acting the way one's gendered appearance is "supposed to," and reconnection to Jewish identity on an ancestral level. Andrea Long Chu's "China Brain" gives the human brain a voice and perspective as narrator in an essay that really threw me through a loop. Kaitlyn Greenidge's "What She Would Always and Should Always Be Doing" made me think about how important bodies are as well as how easy it can be to feel out of place in a female body. Aube Rey Lescure's "At the Bend Of the Road" (possibly my favorite of the 5 stars) masterfully set me up as a reader to expect the worst and still managed to surprise me when the worst happened. How the narrative grapples with what a woman is supposed to do after the worst is what I think sets this essay above others. So, there you have it. These are just my personal 5 stars, despite the others in the collection being superstars in their own rights. I recommend this collection while also returning to my earlier statement about the sacredness (and heaviness) of sadness in writing. 


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Some of my favorite quotes from my 5 star picks:

"I turn my bedside lamp on and open the novel on my nightstand. I will be in its world. Not this one." (from "Futurity")

"I wanted to know that I was deeply loved." (from "Her Kind")

"There is dignity in allowing ourselves to be more than the clinical language that describes how our minds work." (from "Her Kind")

"... the body I inhabited suddenly seemed to draw commentary from anyone and everyone around me." (from "What She Would...")

"We are two anonymous girls with heavy backpacks on a train, and what happened to us is a pebble thrown into an ocean, quickly engulfed and irrelevant." (from "At the Bend of the Road")

"... we take our bodies to markets and restaurants." (from "At the Bend of the Road")

"An exhausting message: a woman walking is always in danger." (from "At the Bend of the Road")

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