Find The Life Of The Mind Edited By Christine Smallwood Shown As Textbook

Life of the Mind by Christine Smallwood is a book for people who constantly believe that they are making a fool out of themselves, A couple months ago, I was walking around the neighborhood near the bookshop I work at, I had gotten a coffee, the sun was shining, I was in a rare good mood, I strolled around smiling at dogs, even occasionally waving at a friendly stranger who passed me in the street, I came upon a couple who stood in the middle of the sidewalk, making out with one arm outstretched, iPhone camera in hand, The man turned one eye towards the camera, photographing this makeout session while his wife kissed his neck in passionate bliss, It was a strange occurrence, and was really none of my business, but I still felt the urge to cheerfully ask them if they wanted me to take a photograph of them.
Clearly interrupting a moment although they were literally blocking foot traffic on the sidewalk in the middle of the day, the couple broke away from their euphoria, glowered at me, said "No.
" and walked away, cackling at the awkwardness that had just ensued, This situation was remarkably similar to the various awkward interactions that Dorothy, the main character in The Life of the Mind, tends to find herself in,

The Life of the Mind opens with Dorothy sitting on the toilet, still experiencing her miscarriage, The miscarriage acts as a checkpoint throughout the book, In many chapters, we find Dorothy sitting on the toilet, contemplating various discharge coming out of her, Smallwood describes this in graphic detail, she doesn't skimp on the descriptions of the shit or the blood, describing both in visceral detail, Dorothy's miscarriage acts as the sort of centerpiece from which the rest of the novel stems, It's meant to act as a sort of symbol of Dorothy's socalled failure, her inability to have a child seems to be a direct connection to her self worth.
She spends her days bumbling around her job as an adjunct professor, texting with her rambunctious, wealthy friend Gaby, and coming home to her sweet, yet dull boyfriend Rog.
It's never stated outright, but it's clear to see that Dorothy hates her life and believes that she's a failure,

The novel is narrated in the third person, but feels reminiscent of Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler, Pew by Catherine Lacey, and the Outline Trilogy by Rachel Cusk.
There's a whole new genre of books that include novels where the protagonist just walks around, remarking on their weird interactions and the strange people that they see in everyday life.
As far as funny musings go in this book, Smallwood kills it, She is absolutely hilarious, and gets everything right, She nails the hold that internet feminism has on Gaby she wishes that her husband hadn't been at her birth, because she believes that if it had just been her and her doula it would have been "witchier", and she has a strong grasp on the empty platitudes that we repeat to ourselves, platitudes that come straight from Instagram infographics "'I need my bodily autonomy,' Gaby said grandly, words that seemed to come from an internal teleprompter or an article she had read online.
". She's also, at the risk of sounding like a book blurb, an astute observer of the human condition, One scene in particular, which takes place at a party at Gaby's house, is particularly hilarious, A woman delivers a disastrously rehearsed joke "Her tone was confessional but the rapid way in which she delivered the confession made Dorothy think it was not a true confession, compelled to surface in the imperfect moment, but a line that had been worked over and tested in front of smaller, more familiar audiences, before being rolled out on this festive occasion.
", and a motley crew of people participate in karaoke "A woman in a sweater so loud it was chaotic briefly cleared the room with a frightening rendition of 'HeartShaped Box'.


The Life of the Mind, for all of its crazy humor, is a remarkably lowstakes novel, This is not a bad thing, Not a lot happens, and the farthest the

narrator ventures from the familiar is Las Vegas, where she goes and attempts to party with some coworkers who end up just venting to her about their love lives.
The Las Vegas scene felt most similar to Outline by Rachel Cusk, both because of the continued hilarious social observations particularly in a bizarrely funny rideshare scene, but also because of how it rambles on for a bit too long.
When the main character finds herself in a venting session with a woman named Elyse, I couldn't help but think of Faye from Outline's relationship with the man she met on the plane to Athens.
Both relationships included lots of dull dialogue, and conversation that caused my eyes to glaze over the page, Aside from the times when the Vegas chapter dragged, I was amazed at how well Smallwood was able to demand my attention throughout much of this entire book, I really enjoyed following the protagonist around, and was surprised at how much I connected to her,

The Life of the Mind will be most enjoyed by people with remarkably low selfesteem, people who constantly believe that they are doing something incorrect, People who find something wrong with every situation, but are excellent at poking fun at others and making themselves laugh while people watching, It's a mean little book sometimes, but one of the most incisive portraits of millennial hopelessness I've read since Halle Butler's The New Me, However, while reading this, I found it to be more similar to The Shame by Makenna Goodman another favorite book of mine, Both are novels that deal with immense selfhatred, featuring characters who want to change their lives so badly and they have no idea where to start, It doesn't make for the happiest sort of reading, but it ends up being painfully relatable for the certain kind of reader that these authors write for, the sort of reader who can never find the beginning, so they only look for the ending.
i was so bored the entire time i'm reading this Thank you so much to tandemcollectiveuk and europaeditionsuk for letting me tag along to the AdPrGifted Book Tour woooooo.


Trigger warning: miscarriage, abortion, depression

Ok so honestly this book looks like its giving Bridget Jones mixed withblues but in reality its giving Kendall Jenner holds up a coke can and is surprised racism didnt end.


Literally nothing happened, Nothing. I get the narrative style that means we see only through the reflections in the protagonists perception of events but I wanted to pull my hair out or just leave the book on the train.


I fear this is where society is heading, glorifying struggle, Dorothy miscarried, lied to her therapists, was enabled by everyone and left to rot on the side of the road figuratively speaking, Then we wonder why people suffer and dont speak up, but every time she tried no one cared, So she went off and did some really weird things with her period blood because she needed something, anything to make her FEEL,

This book is frustrating, insufferable and basically not okay, Im gutted because Ill probably never be invited to another readalong boo but equally I cant promote a book I think is fundamentally problematic le cry dnf got to pageand was bored.
characters were bland and i just couldnt get into it, idk what the plot was anyway The Life of the Mind might have been more accurately called The Life of the Uterus because that is the locus of the action in this book.
It is particularly focused on the events in the uterus of the protagonist who has suffered a miscarriage and been treated with the drug that induces medical abortions in order to clear the uterus of the debris from the miscarriage.
She was told to expect bleeding for about ten days, but she is still experiencing the aftereffects weeks later, Then later her best friend decides to have an abortion, So, yes, uteruses rule in this tale,

But perhaps I am being unfair because the protagonist, Dorothy, also thinks a lot so her mind is engaged, She thinks a lot about the miscarriage although she doesn't particularly grieve about it, Mostly she thinks about it because she hasn't told anyone except her partner, She has withheld the information from her best friend, the one who later decides to have an abortion, And she has withheld the information from her therapists, both her first therapist and the second one that she sees to complain about the first one, Secondguessing her actions seems to be second nature with Dorothy, She can't seem to make a decision without reviewing, rethinking, and replaying it in her mind,

Dorothy is an adjunct professor at a private university where she teaches two to four courses per semester including one course called Writing Apocalypse, Her students are encouraged to write about an apocalypse to come, The context for the course seems to be global anxiety perhaps in regard to the environmental crisis or a political crisis or maybe both, It isn't altogether clear. But Dorothy herself seems less concerned with any of that than she is with what she terms "disappointed cynicism, hatred of groups and existential damage that manifests as useless contrarianism and resignation.
" Her mind focuses on this and her thoughts swirl endlessly and claustrophobically around this center,

As for the novel's plot, there really isn't much of one, The writing is incisive and it moves along at a fair clip, but nothing much happens and there doesn't seem to be any defining moment of truth or crux to it all.
Indeed, at one detour point in the narrative, Dorothy goes to an academic conference in Las Vegas, Why There doesn't seem to be any particular reason for it and it doesn't reveal anything new to the reader, It's just a distraction.

Moreover, a considerable portion of the narrative is spent describing scatological matters and Dorothy's hygiene, or lack of same, The first sentence of the book finds her sitting in a public toilet and musing over the fact that she is still bleeding from her miscarriage after six days.
And that sort of sets the tone for what is to follow, Again, why this emphasis Perhaps the writer did it for its shock value, but it's all a bit disgusting and I couldn't really see that it served any great purpose.


Disaffected and dissatisfied seem to best describe Dorothy, She leads a rather bleak life but it was hard for me to work up much empathy for her, in spite of the fact that we share a name.
Smallwood's writing is fairly streamofconsciousness in style and the story is undeniably creative, unique even, But I do like books to have a point to them and this one just didn't seem to, Then, again, maybe pointlessness was the point,
.