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octavosaurus's review
2.0
I really really wanted to love this, but it just felt like the same story being told again and again and again. It was great to be introduced to some wonderful writers whose work I will gladly hunt out though.
jessicaxmaria's review
4.0
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of writers' experiences living, loving, and leaving New York. Most relatable for the likes of me in terms of living here now (going on eight years), and because they are all essays in tribute to one of my favorite essays of all time, Joan Didion's "Goodbye to All That." All of these writers have lived different lives and at different times -- there's a range of ages, a range of 'New Yorks,' but every New York is the same. Perhaps I wasn't buying heroin or waving goodbye to New York as I flew to New Zealand, but there are similar threads through each essay, and it mainly has to do with that character of this city; that emotional relationship you've found yourself in with a location that lives and breathes just like that lover that loved you and dumped you and reclaimed you and sometimes you just left without looking back. Or you embraced it all the more. Almost how similar points of view can produce such different reactions.
torts's review
3.0
Maybe I'm just too bitter to truly appreciate other people's stories of love/success, but something about this collection struck me as a kind of bragging, self-indulgent repetition the same basic story. Like a repeated humblebrag of, "Not only am I cool enough to have lived in New York City, but I'm clever enough to have left it and poetic enough to write about it in a way that is gracious enough to admit my faults. Also, I am a white woman who is happily married to a man who has helped me stay financially stable through all my missteps." (I realize not every author in this collection fits this description. I'm exaggerating because I am very bitterly none of these things.) Reading a bunch of stories about how people squandered their privileged New York opportunities and still managed to find success elsewhere got tiresome very quickly.
So many of these writers seemed to move to New York with a sense of entitlement, and in spite of their efforts to dramatize their struggles and their eventual break from the city, the fact that they are all published authors who have found success because of those struggles...makes it kind of seem disingenuous, like they sought out their troubles so they'd have something dramatic to write about. Many of them basically admit that that's what they did. Like, even Valerie Eagle, who had a hard life before New York City and faced some serious consequences due to the drug addiction she developed there, started out in the city with a stable home and job thanks to her aunt. Even stories like Eagle's, which somewhat diverged from type, struck me as repetitive because of this common narrative arc of naive-hope-met-with-harsh-reality-followed-by-success.
Maybe I can't help feeling like the authors all share Meghan Daum's perspective in "My Misspent Youth" (the actual essay, not the introductory part where she kind of hedges her sense of entitlement and acknowledges the fact that New York is excruciatingly expensive), where she writes "Self-entitlement is a quality that has gotten a bad name for itself and yet, in my opinion, it's one of the best things a student can get out of an education. Much of my success and happiness is a direct result of it."
So, okay, these are a bunch of entitled writers reflecting on their shared decision to leave New York...but maybe their entitlement is more of an asset than I'm willing to admit. They're all good writers, and they all have clever and insightful things to say. It's not their fault I kind of resent the uniting premise of the collection they're published in.
So many of these writers seemed to move to New York with a sense of entitlement, and in spite of their efforts to dramatize their struggles and their eventual break from the city, the fact that they are all published authors who have found success because of those struggles...makes it kind of seem disingenuous, like they sought out their troubles so they'd have something dramatic to write about. Many of them basically admit that that's what they did. Like, even Valerie Eagle, who had a hard life before New York City and faced some serious consequences due to the drug addiction she developed there, started out in the city with a stable home and job thanks to her aunt. Even stories like Eagle's, which somewhat diverged from type, struck me as repetitive because of this common narrative arc of naive-hope-met-with-harsh-reality-followed-by-success.
Maybe I can't help feeling like the authors all share Meghan Daum's perspective in "My Misspent Youth" (the actual essay, not the introductory part where she kind of hedges her sense of entitlement and acknowledges the fact that New York is excruciatingly expensive), where she writes "Self-entitlement is a quality that has gotten a bad name for itself and yet, in my opinion, it's one of the best things a student can get out of an education. Much of my success and happiness is a direct result of it."
So, okay, these are a bunch of entitled writers reflecting on their shared decision to leave New York...but maybe their entitlement is more of an asset than I'm willing to admit. They're all good writers, and they all have clever and insightful things to say. It's not their fault I kind of resent the uniting premise of the collection they're published in.
ditaa's review
4.0
Someone awesome gave this book to me, and I freaked out first. Saying goodbye to New York is scary. But as life in New York remains a mystery for me, and there are layers that I'd like to explore, I turned the pages to understand the city. My favorite story is the crackhead, and I can totally relate to this line "Working 9-5 in New York makes you delirious and claustrophobic, but when you don't have it you constantly worry about money."
michaelmaiello's review
4.0
I'm very late to reading 2013’s Goodbye to All That, a collection of 28 essays by women writers who have left New York City, including Emily Gould Cheryl Strayed, Emma Straub, Dana Kinstler… well, they’re all notable writers and they’re all gone. They do a collectively wonderful job paying homage to Joan Didion, who wrote the essay that named the collection.
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macroscopicentric's review
2.0
Not my personal favorite. Most of the essays were too precious and simplistic, relying on tired stereotypes and following the exact same format.
jessryn's review
4.0
I'd say more like 3.5 stars. My favorite essays were contained in pages 132-168 (Currency, A War Zone for Anyone Looking for Love, and Real Estate). Thought the extreme drug addiction essays were too concentrated in the front.
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