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becklabeck's review
4.0
A solid and fairly diverse collection. I found most of them pretty interesting, with my favorites being White Horse (a woman with a past riddled by sexual assault struggles to remember a key moment of her childhood), If I Only Had a Leg (a boy with cerebral palsy and a love of showbiz meets the last remaining Munchkin actress from The Wizard of Oz), and Haywire (a woman reflects on her father's complex gender expression). A lot of the essays in this collection brought me new and interesting perspectives to issues that are relevant today, like U.S. healthcare, violence in cities, smoking bans, immigration, and black representation in media. I'll definitely pick up more of these Best American Essay collections if I see them around.
theknitpick's review
3.0
This was my first time reading a collection of essays by different people. I've read essays before, but ones that were written by one person, perhaps all centered on a particular topic. So this was new to me. Here are my thoughts on the subject:
I'm not really sure what the definition of an essay is, because based on the wide variety that is in this book, it seems like essays can be anything - thoughts on a subject of interest, personal stories, thoughts on a specific person (famous or not). When I had to write essays in school, they were a far cry from this, so I didn't really know what to expect with each new essay.
What I can say is, when I read reviews of other essays collections, Roxane Gay's, for example, I saw a lot of people complain about a lack of argument or break down of a topic into an argument. Now having read this collection (of the supposedly BEST essays in 2017) I can say that most essays do not make it clear what the argument is. In fact, most just seem to be a discussion, with the author's personal thoughts about the subject. So I think most people have the same problem as me and don't really know what an essay is (outside of a school context).
That being said, I enjoyed a lot of the essays in this book. Jamison did an excellent job of choosing a wide range of subjects and authors, whose topics were all over the map, including racism, abuse, addiction, and grief. Some of my favorites were "White Horse," "The Cost of Living," "If I Only Had a Leg," and "The Reader Is the Protagonist." These stories really drew me in and showed fascinating glimpses into the lives of people competently different from me.
There were others I hated, that were either hard to follow or else the subject matter didn't appeal to me or I just didn't enjoy reading it. It was quite an eclectic bunch, so their were bound to be essays I didn't care for.
I'm glad I read this book. It was a challenge to my general reading, I had to focus, there were layers happening and I wanted to catch the author's meaning because these were crafted bits of writing, they were trying to do something other than just tell a story.
I would recommend this or other collections in this series to those who enjoy slice of life narratives. They may be essays, but they are also stories, and you get very close to the author, they're showing you their brain working through something very intimately.
I am counting this as my "Essay Anthology," for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge 2018.
I'm not really sure what the definition of an essay is, because based on the wide variety that is in this book, it seems like essays can be anything - thoughts on a subject of interest, personal stories, thoughts on a specific person (famous or not). When I had to write essays in school, they were a far cry from this, so I didn't really know what to expect with each new essay.
What I can say is, when I read reviews of other essays collections, Roxane Gay's, for example, I saw a lot of people complain about a lack of argument or break down of a topic into an argument. Now having read this collection (of the supposedly BEST essays in 2017) I can say that most essays do not make it clear what the argument is. In fact, most just seem to be a discussion, with the author's personal thoughts about the subject. So I think most people have the same problem as me and don't really know what an essay is (outside of a school context).
That being said, I enjoyed a lot of the essays in this book. Jamison did an excellent job of choosing a wide range of subjects and authors, whose topics were all over the map, including racism, abuse, addiction, and grief. Some of my favorites were "White Horse," "The Cost of Living," "If I Only Had a Leg," and "The Reader Is the Protagonist." These stories really drew me in and showed fascinating glimpses into the lives of people competently different from me.
There were others I hated, that were either hard to follow or else the subject matter didn't appeal to me or I just didn't enjoy reading it. It was quite an eclectic bunch, so their were bound to be essays I didn't care for.
I'm glad I read this book. It was a challenge to my general reading, I had to focus, there were layers happening and I wanted to catch the author's meaning because these were crafted bits of writing, they were trying to do something other than just tell a story.
I would recommend this or other collections in this series to those who enjoy slice of life narratives. They may be essays, but they are also stories, and you get very close to the author, they're showing you their brain working through something very intimately.
I am counting this as my "Essay Anthology," for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge 2018.
sarahjsnider's review
4.0
I'm glad I didn't miss these essays. They are mostly time-specific to 2017 but not so time-specific that reading them in December was jarring. How should I support nonfiction essay writing in 2018 and beyond (besides subscribing to a boatload of publications)?
j___writes's review
4.0
As the title suggests, this is a great collection of essays from American authors. These books are an awesome way to stay up-to-date on new publications.
kathrynvanbeek's review
4.0
I really enjoyed reading this collection. In my opinion there were three duds (one was a bit clunky, one had a faulty premise, and one was a total rant) but that leaves 17 astonishing and thought-provoking essays about a wide range of topics. For me the stand-outs were 'White Horse', 'Cost of Living', 'If I Only Had a Leg', 'Sparrow Needy', 'Dispatch from Flyover Country', 'The Reader is the Protagonist', 'H.', and 'Haywire'. Though reviewing that list just makes me want to add more ... there's so much great reading in here.
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