Kirsti's review
The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women's True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away
by Jenny Offill, Elissa Schappell
Kirsti's review
The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women's True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away by Jenny Offill, Elissa Schappell
Kirsti's review
rating:
bookshelves:
essays,
memoir,
nonfiction
I knew that Jen was reading this book, and I decided to get a copy for myself. I love the idea behind this book and nearly all the essays in it.
I'm a little confused about why the editors put the weakest and most polarizing essay first, though. Based on "Torch Song," I understand why so many people hate Katie Roiphe. Her essay is about stealing a friend's boyfriend, but it's the way she tells it that made my lip curl. Here's someone who compliments her ex-friend and then immediately implies that that person was too fat to keep a man ... someone who compares a destroyed friendship to a school shooting, which is the most offensive comparison I have encountered in a long time ... an Ivy League graduate who does not know how to use a spell-checker. In short, her essay annoyed me on many levels.
Jenny Offill's "End Days" is fascinating because the broken friendship is mixed up with fundamentalist Christianity and the Rapture.
Dorothy Allison's "Dan...more
I'm a little confused about why the editors put the weakest and most polarizing essay first, though. Based on "Torch Song," I understand why so many people hate Katie Roiphe. Her essay is about stealing a friend's boyfriend, but it's the way she tells it that made my lip curl. Here's someone who compliments her ex-friend and then immediately implies that that person was too fat to keep a man ... someone who compares a destroyed friendship to a school shooting, which is the most offensive comparison I have encountered in a long time ... an Ivy League graduate who does not know how to use a spell-checker. In short, her essay annoyed me on many levels.
Jenny Offill's "End Days" is fascinating because the broken friendship is mixed up with fundamentalist Christianity and the Rapture.
Dorothy Allison's "Dan...more
