I originally read The Year of Magical Thinking 10+ years ago, as an assignment in my undergraduate creative nonfiction workshop. I don't remember it making much of an impact on me back then (because maybe there's a 20-year-old who can relate to being an iconic writer who's lost her husband, but it wasn't me), but I decided to revisit it after my father's recent death.

What I've learned from my reread is that maybe less than two weeks after my dad died isn't the time to intellectualize my feelings by going into research mode and reading every book about grief that I can get my hands on. Obviously this is well-written--it's Joan Didion--but listening to the audio book had the tendency to strike me numb and send me spiraling into memories of sitting in the hospital and seeing my dad on a ventilator.