The White Album by Joan Didion

The White Album by Joan Didion
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Definitely all over the place. Some infinitely more interesting than others. Strange to read one essay about Black Panther arrests without any meaningful context, and then read about water treatment in California.

I especially liked Didion's essays, "The Women's Movement," "Georgia O'Keeffe," "In Bed," and "On the Morning After the Sixties."

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Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great weekend read. Didion's writing is so good it's not fair to everyone else. How did she write this well in her early 30s?

The collection is mostly essays about California in the 60s, Didion really puts you there, even if, like me, you've barely ever been to California. What she failed to explain to me is why people live in a state that is so clearly hostile to humans and human settlement. Besides the earthquakes-- which she barely mentions, there are the mudslides, fires, deadly rivers, snakes, desert everywhere, and an entire essay is dedicated to the maleficent Santa Ana winds. She does dedicate an entire essay to why living in New York City when you are no longer young is crazy, with no special reasons except her own depression and cold weather. I am not the biggest fan of New York City either, but the ground in New York rarely tries to eat people alive.

Spoiler alert: In real life, she moves back to New York. Is there an essay about that?

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South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion

South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I get it. She writes beautifully. Her random jottings in a notebook are better than what most people will ever write in their lives even with edits. And I did enjoy meandering through the racist South of the 1970s. But seriously, what was that California/ Patty Hearst mess at the end?

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The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A beautiful memoir of how Didion experienced the death of her husband. I read Blue Nights first and now I wonder if I need to revisit Blue Nights, because apparently Quintana had not yet passed away when this book came out.

I looked up the timeline. In 1964 Joan and John got married, and in 1966 they adopted Quintana. Quintana got married in July 26, 2003. Shortly thereafter, Quintana fell into a coma from sepsis a virus or bacteria, and during that time, John Dunn, Joan's husband and Quintana's father passed away on December 30, 2003. Quintana recovered within 3 months. She had a hematoma while traveling shortly after that. She made a difficult recovery in 2004, but then passed away of pancreatitis on August 26, 2005. Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking about her husband's death was already coming out on September 1, 2005. Blue Nights about her daughter's death didn't come out until 2011. These books might be best read back to back, though The Year of Magical Thinking is the better book.

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Blue Nights by Joan Didion

Blue Nights by Joan Didion
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I haven't read The Year of Magical Thinking yet, so maybe my view of this book is a bit incomplete. There are beautiful, sad, and disturbing parts but overall the disjointed nature of the book ruined my enjoyment of it. She also repeated certain phrases over and over again. I appreciate the poetic value of that. However, she overused the method so much that, particularly in it such a short book, it felt like a word count stretch, rather than something that added value to the narrative.

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