No hot girl summer reading list is complete without a fun little essay collection to make you question the entire trajectory of your twenties.
A little context here; I had no idea what this was when I first picked this up. I was in Powell's Bookstore in Portland, feeling overwhelmed, and it was just an attractive bright yellow light to my tiny pea brain. Yes, I judged a book on its cover, I just so happened to get really, really, lucky.
Being that I just recently became the prime demographic for a book like this (a naive twenty-something woman trying to "find herself" in New York), I genuinely think this was meant to cross my path. I know I sound dramatic, but seriously guys, I am obsessed. Without further ado,
I'll Tell You in Person, by Chloe Caldwell.
I already have (and read) her other two essay collections because I've got this new theory that the faster I read things by people I admire, the more talent I can then absorb. Writing osmosis, I like to call it. That, and I exhibit nothing but pure fan behavior when it comes to this woman.
Really though, if there were ever a person I would like to absorb a small fraction of the talent from, it would be Chloe Caldwell. Well, Chloe Caldwell and Joan Didion.
What struck me most about this collection is how raw it was throughout. She bared herself on every single page, and even still, it was funny! Genuinely laugh out loud funny. If you've read her previous, Legs Get Led Astray, this is a clear departure in terms of maturity.
While both collections highlight her life in New York through her twenties and early thirties, the tone of voice she carries in this is more reflective. It's not so "in the moment" passionate, but rather the voice of an old friend, inviting you to share in fond memories with her of a time she doesn't exist in anymore, but also doesn't regret.
From the typical personal essay topics like friendships, relationships, shitty jobs, and shittier breakups—Caldwell also deep dives into her addictions, encounters with undescribed celebrity friends, and lessons learned. She brings you into these stories with such a casual ease that it's as if you were there being her partner in crime, the entire time.
She's so relatable to the extent that my book is more annotations, highlights, and bookmarks than it is her own text. She's not this high-and-mighty mystery author putting herself on a pedestal above us readers, she's a friend who's just going through it and wanting to share in a way to make us laugh, when the stories are real enough to make you cry.
Caldwell's New York is full of quirky TMI stories, that never feel out of boundaries. She takes risks, she has a voice, she made me consider Craigslist dating! Reading her collections while living just blocks from her mentioned favorites though, puts things into an even higher perspective.
I inevitably found myself unable to not compare Caldwell's New York to my own. By my age, she had a full life of stories to share (and that's not even into part 3 of the book). Was I doing something wrong, that I don't?
A (surprisingly easy) 200-odd pages of iconry later, is when I realized. With or without the "crazy enough to be a novel" lifestyle, it's an exciting privilege to live any moment of your life in this city. And the "Chloe Caldwell way" is really just fucking owning it.
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