Book 7 - Assemble a Person

Title: Heating and Cooling

Author: Beth Ann Fennelly

Genre: Bits-and-Pieces Memoir

Short, sweet, and 100% enjoyable. This was a recommendation from a friend and it was just so refreshing and easy to read - especially after having started and GIVEN UP on two books in a row. So. Frustrating.

Anyways, this was cute and funny and heartbreaking. I haven't read many memoirs, but this format - snapshots of memories/thoughts/feelings ranging from one sentence to five pages - was super effective. She was able to strike this balance, where we are privy to moments explained, but shut out from others, and are left to cobble the details into our own guesswork of events. For example, her sister's death. By the end of the memoir we know it's happened, and have an idea of the ways, both minute and massive, in which this event has impacted and will continue to impact her life, but never do we have to sit through a play-by-play of how she died. I mean, of course I would have read that, but I much preferred the exercise of being handed the pieces and, one by one, putting it all together.

Rating: 🍊🍊🍊🍊 /5

Would definitely recommend, and might re-read. I felt like I blew through this way too fast, and might need another go to really soak it in.