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kyatic 's review for:
A Woman, a Plan, an Outline of a Man
by Sarah Kasbeer
ARC received via the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
First and foremost, Kasbeer is an excellent writer and I appreciate her candour and honesty in these essays. It's no easy thing to write about your life in such a raw and open way. The essays in this collection which stood out are, not coincidentally, the ones in which Kasbeer writes about the parts of her life that have wounded her most grievously. 'Lovers' in particular was a really excellent essay about recovering from trauma, and I also really enjoyed 'On the Edge of Seventeen'. 'One Man's Trash' was great, too; I loved seeing behind the glamorous veil of the world of the fashion magazines, a la Ugly Betty. Those were the standouts, in my opinion, and not just because they're topics that I have the most interest in. I also really enjoyed Kasbeer's turn of phrase in general, and found myself highlighting several lines in each essay because I loved her use of language. I haven't read her work before, but this book has definitely convinced me that I ought to.
I did feel like a lot of the essays sort of just fizzled out; they seemed to be building up to a point, and then just stopped. There also didn't seem to be an overarching theme, with some essays delving into the nuance of trauma and recovery, and others just meandering around Kasbeer's life. I wonder if this is because they were edited from their original publication, or because they're not designed to work together cohesively as a collection.
I read an ARC so I don't know if this was corrected in later editions, but Kasbeer also has a tendency to use classical allusions but get them a bit wrong - she references the myth of Apollo and Daphne as recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses and claims that Eros is the Roman version of Cupid at one point (it's actually the other way round, sort of, insofar as Roman gods aren't really 'versions' of the Greek gods at all, but Eros is very much Greek.) She also makes reference to Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium in a way that doesn't really engage with the actual meaning and mode of the text, and also confuses the roles of eros and philia. I do happen to be a classicist so I have a bit of a sore spot for people misusing classical allusions; it tends to be done in an attempt to look very clever and to add weight to a text, but it comes across as clunky when it's not done with a real understanding of the allusions themselves. Still, I recognise that this is a bit of a personal gripe, although I do think it should probably have been fact-checked.
I would really have liked this to have been longer, because Kasbeer has such an engaging voice and way of writing. I'll very happily pick up anything else she writes, and I'm really gunning for a full length, 300+ pages book of essays, or a really meaty memoir about her days as a PA, because I think that would be great.
First and foremost, Kasbeer is an excellent writer and I appreciate her candour and honesty in these essays. It's no easy thing to write about your life in such a raw and open way. The essays in this collection which stood out are, not coincidentally, the ones in which Kasbeer writes about the parts of her life that have wounded her most grievously. 'Lovers' in particular was a really excellent essay about recovering from trauma, and I also really enjoyed 'On the Edge of Seventeen'. 'One Man's Trash' was great, too; I loved seeing behind the glamorous veil of the world of the fashion magazines, a la Ugly Betty. Those were the standouts, in my opinion, and not just because they're topics that I have the most interest in. I also really enjoyed Kasbeer's turn of phrase in general, and found myself highlighting several lines in each essay because I loved her use of language. I haven't read her work before, but this book has definitely convinced me that I ought to.
I did feel like a lot of the essays sort of just fizzled out; they seemed to be building up to a point, and then just stopped. There also didn't seem to be an overarching theme, with some essays delving into the nuance of trauma and recovery, and others just meandering around Kasbeer's life. I wonder if this is because they were edited from their original publication, or because they're not designed to work together cohesively as a collection.
I read an ARC so I don't know if this was corrected in later editions, but Kasbeer also has a tendency to use classical allusions but get them a bit wrong - she references the myth of Apollo and Daphne as recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses and claims that Eros is the Roman version of Cupid at one point (it's actually the other way round, sort of, insofar as Roman gods aren't really 'versions' of the Greek gods at all, but Eros is very much Greek.) She also makes reference to Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium in a way that doesn't really engage with the actual meaning and mode of the text, and also confuses the roles of eros and philia. I do happen to be a classicist so I have a bit of a sore spot for people misusing classical allusions; it tends to be done in an attempt to look very clever and to add weight to a text, but it comes across as clunky when it's not done with a real understanding of the allusions themselves. Still, I recognise that this is a bit of a personal gripe, although I do think it should probably have been fact-checked.
I would really have liked this to have been longer, because Kasbeer has such an engaging voice and way of writing. I'll very happily pick up anything else she writes, and I'm really gunning for a full length, 300+ pages book of essays, or a really meaty memoir about her days as a PA, because I think that would be great.