“What stories were you told…about the shape of love, the shape of yourself, the shape of a happy life....What were you told had to happen in a story for it to feel complete?”

I bought The Crane Wife on a Friday after tracing its origins to The Paris Review essay (of the same name) that went viral in 2021.

My first thought is that I want to put these unabashedly honest essays into the hands of my three grown daughters and all their friends. I want them to experience the way C.J. Hauser takes us into the backstory of her life and loves and tells us to accept ourselves - to live our lives without the weight of others' expectations. Whether that is marriage, or sexuality or the decision to have children, Hauser's meditations on these issues will resonate with so many women. This is such an authentic memoir - a self-reckoning full of both humor and raw pain that comes full circle to say "it's ok to feel this way!" But it's so much more...

I love that Hauser wants others in her life to make room for dogs (because I do too)! I love that her prose has an authentic, intimate and natural flow to it that feels as though you're listening to a friend. I love that Yaddo played a role in this book, having lived just down the street from this beautiful, literary community for a decade. I love her passion for Rebecca and how she masterfully wove it into her story. But most of all I love that at its core, The Crane Wife is about our internal dramas and how to move beyond them without compromising who we are and what we want. I don't think there's a better lesson out there and Hauser teaches it well.