Constellations
Books | Literary Collections / Essays
4
Sinéad Gleeson
*Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2020**Winner of non-fiction book of the year at the Irish Book Awards*An extraordinarily intimate book of essays that chart the experiences that have made Sinéad Gleeson the woman and the writer she is today, for readers of The Last Act of Love and I Am, I Am, I Am.'Utterly magnificent. Raw, thought-provoking and galvanising; this is a book every woman should read.' – Eimear McBride, author of A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing.I have come to think of all the metal in my body as artificial stars, glistening beneath the skin, a constellation of old and new metal. A map, a tracing of connections and a guide to looking at things from different angles. How do you tell the story of a life in a body, as it goes through sickness, health, motherhood? How do you tell that story when you are not just a woman but a woman in Ireland? In the powerful and daring essays in Constellations Sinéad Gleeson does that very thing. All of life is within these pages, from birth to first love, pregnancy to motherhood, terrifying sickness, old age and loss to death itself.Throughout this wide-ranging collection she also turns her restless eye outwards delving into work, art and our very ways of seeing. In the tradition of some of our finest life writers, and yet still in her own spirited, generous voice, Sinéad takes us on a journey that is both uniquely personal and yet universal in its resonance. Here is the fierce joy and pain of being alive.'Breathtaking and sublime.' – Nina Stibbe'Absolutely extraordinary and life-enhancing.' – Daisy Buchanan, author of How to be Grown-up.
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Author
Sinéad Gleeson
Pages
304
Publisher
Pan Macmillan
Published Date
2019-04-04
ISBN
1509892745 9781509892747
Community ReviewsSee all
"(I received a free digital copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affects my rating or opinions of the book.)<br/><br/>A graphic novel about a trans teen struggling with addiction with found family tropes and wholesome messages? This book was supposed to be right up my alley. Unfortunately, it just fell flat. <br/><br/>I was SUPER confused for the first, like, 20% of the book as to what is going on with Claire’s gender identity. All it says is that she is a girl who looks like a boy, but doesn’t go into detail beyond that. I was having a hard time understanding if Claire was supposed to be trans or not. Based on the “girl who looks like a boy” description, I actually thought that she was a trans girl at first. If it explained in the beginning that Claire was assigned female at birth but enjoyed dressing more “like a boy”, then the book would have been much easier to understand.<br/><br/>That is more or less a pretty minor issue, and I would have been able to overlook that, but basically every aspect of the book also kind of sucked. The plot was pretty much nonexistent. The majority of the book is just Claire’s therapy sessions, and there are very little character interactions or plot developments outside of that. The whole thing felt very preachy, more like you are reading a self help book than a fictional story. Considering this book promises found family tropes, the lack of character development was extremely disappointing. <br/><br/>Finally, the art style. It is… weird at best. The way that characters are shaded makes them look really off, their expressions are unrealistic and flat out creepy sometimes for no reason, and the added in doodles were often distracting from the storyline. Not to mention the fact that most of the characters all look the same. I was having a hard time distinguishing Claire, the literal main character, from the other male characters.<br/><br/>Overall, I was super disappointed in this and I don’t think I could recommend it to anyone."
Grace Y