Book #17: This is How I Speak

The book: This is How I Speak by Sandi Sonnenfeld

What is this book about: This book is a one-year journal (although one that sometimes seemed a bit too polished to me) of a 24-year-old female East Coaster who is getting her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Washington. The journal was kept in the 1980s and the book was published in 2002.

Why did I read this book: I'll give you three guesses.

What did I think of this book: Well, the first thing to talk about is that the book is a lot less about creative writing than you'd think. Frankly Sandi Sonnenfeld seems pretty disgusted with the whole process of creative writing seminars and classes, because she seems to think she's too cool for school. The book is more about a dance professor at UW that she desperately wants to impress and the intersection of dance and writing and art and the world that Sandi Sonnenfeld doesn't feel appreciates her.

Speaking of the world that doesn't appreciate Sandi Sonnenfeld, apparently no one appreciates her, because she is always always bitching about how the people in her life have let her down, and how she has it worse than anyone else in the whole world. To be fair, thoughts like these are probably common in most of the journals 24- or 25-year-old females who are interested in creative writing, because this demographic is known for being fairly emotionally unstable and neurotic (not that I would know). But not everyone feels the need to publish their melodramatic journal. The rest of us have blogs.

I will say that Sandi Sonnenfeld redeems her pithy whining with two quotes, one from the preface that goes, "Looking back on these pages now...I sometimes ask myself if I should have...taken myself less seriously. And the answer is 'of course.' But that is the very nature of again; we gain wisdom with experience, and we ultimately learn that those things which felt so painful in our early twenties become of little consequence in our thirties and forties" (ix). So you know...just five years to go!

Also this one:
"So what if that is being self-absorbed? All writers are. They must be to complete their work. The must be because the world doesn't really want or need books about unicorns or Protestant adultery or diaries until we writers create that need for them" (118).

So I'm going to take her with a grain of salt and say that she knew she might not be necessarily putting her best side out there. It is probably more "real." But it's not always that interesting to read.

What was my favorite part of this book: I liked this quote (please don't sue me, Sandi Sonnenfeld, for using so many quotes): "But most of all, I'm terrified of complacency, the fear that I might settle for what I have simply because I'm afraid of so much else" (5).

I also liked it when she was talking about how her classmates had accused her of writing too much melodrama, and she was thinking, "but you bitches, it's my life" and I was like, well thank God I'm not the only one who thinks she's taking it a bit far.

What did I learn from this book: Try not to complain because it makes you seem unattractive. Don't blame everyone else in the world for your problems.

What grade do I give this book: C+