I'm not going to finish this book and I'm not going to rate it. I couldn't quite figure out what I was reading -- a memoir, thoughts about other authors, snippets of disconnected thoughts about life, death and writing? But it's hard for me to be too be harsh and give it a low rating, because Li appears to have written her book in the context of a serious depression, including more than one hospitalization. This book seems to be her attempt to figure things out through reflections on her life and...

This memoir by Yiyun Li of her struggle with depression made me extremely uncomfortable. Not simply the despair and confusion that is so evident in the writing as well as in the format itself (there is no formal structure per se but rather a loose collection of experiences, recollections of books and writers important to her, and random thoughts) but rather I couldn't escape from the feeling that I was reading something I shouldn't be. If a troubled person allows you the briefest glimpse into

This is actually not a memoir, but rather an overall exploration of literature and criticism: “Dear Friend, from My Life I Write You In Your Life” is the first book of non-fiction by Chinese American writer and award winning novelist Yiyun Li. Throughout the book Li injected brief details from her life, writing career, showing the lingering effects and impact of her mental illness. Li resides in Oakland, California with her husband and sons. Arriving in the U.S. from China, Li felt like a new an...

An Author Disconnected from the PresentI feel more than the usual unease about the uncharitable things I want to say about this book, because the book is a modestly recounted meditation about a period of suicidal depression. As Michael Hofmann says in the "London Review of Books," Yiyun Li's book is "intimate, but not personal; or personal, but not private"(June 2017), and it is as literary as Pessoa or Vila-Matas. There are any number of complimentary things that could be said about her attempt...

The same quality of Yiyun's fictional prose tiptoeing through my brain, then settling in for thoughts long after, lives in her nonfiction writing. This is a beautiful collection of essays exploring her bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts. Part memoir, part lit crit, all wonderful writing. This book will definitely find itself among my stack of books to be revisited annually.

“In an ideal world I would prefer to have my mind reserved for thinking, and thinking alone. I dread the moment when a thought trails off and a feeling starts. . .”Yiyun Li’s Dear Friend, From My Life I write to You in Your Life—a collection of reflections and reminiscences written over a two year period of apparently deep despair and hospitalizations—shocks in its revelatory honesty and self-awareness. Her honesty is all the more shocking by her professed desire to erase the I in her writing: ”...

It’s an honor to be invited to review any book by Random House and Net Galley, and so when the email came, I accepted without hesitation; I thank them for thinking of me and wish I could honestly recommend this one. Others have referred to this memoir, whose title is taken from a quote by Katharine Mansfield, as “exquisite, intimate, and lyrical”, and the author has won awards for her novels. I looked carefully to see if I could locate the genius in this book, but it eluded me completely. The in...

Loneliness is the inability to speak with another in one's private language. Dear Friend, what a way to title a book. Yiyun immediately lures her reader with this phrase, this title. We're all friends in the struggles we share, and personal essay writers knows how to make readers participants. Maybe it is because "a glimpse into the depth of other people's misfortunes makes us cling to the hope that suffering is measurable. There are more sorrowful sorrows, more despondent despondencies."

Not what I was expecting at all. I thought it'd be a gently discursive series of themed essays, a delightfully readable act of philanthropy/altruism, a stocking filler full of Buddhist koans etc. It is instead a very bleak and insightful memoir full of harrowing truths, quotable misery and hard-won wisdom. It's blackly funny, and very sad. And she visits William Trevor, always good.

I chose Dear Friend... to read something different than I usually would. Having now finished it, I find it difficult to form a coherent opinion because it was a difficult read, in that I never felt like I understood the perspective of the author. It is a book of essays by a Chinese author who writes only in English, has twice attempted suicide, and exhibits a preference for reading the letters of other writers. This made it hard work to get through, but nevertheless still satisfying in its way.H...

Lucid . Exquisite . Intimate . Lyrical !This book was in my wish list the moment I saw the name. It reminds me of the essence of Steven Wilson's HAND.CANNOT.ERASE I have been waiting if I would get to read another book like 'A School for Fools' & this book stirs me up the same way. I think I can connect to writer, both of us particularly inclined to read autobiographies, memoirs, letters of real people -the neediness—to find one’s uncertain self in other lives ~

This memoir is a string of thoughts, unanswerable questions, philosophical explorations and personal pain. The author tells us of her own misunderstandings and attempts to understand life. It's written in an eloquent, flowing way- nothing jars and this makes it easy to read, even though the material is so dense.There is no spiritual thread, rather, the author draws on the works of those authors she has most loved. Some of these authors she knew personally, or made deliberate contact with so that...

Read 2/3. This is nor your rainy afternoon cozy reading. This is the writing of someone who thinks that nothingness is the place to be. The prose is difficult. Since she both hates disclosing herself and is compelled to do it, Li obscures and retracts in just about every paragraph. It is also extremely painful. I will return to it because i admire this writer tremendously, but i need to be in a sunnier space. I think she may be the most erudite, deepest, most nihilistic writer today.

It’s difficult to review and rate this book. On the one hand, it’s impeccably, beautifully written, and full of insight. On the other, I personally found it so quietly heavy and fatalistic that I couldn’t read more than a few pages every day. Much like the prose, the person we encounter in these essays is so lovely that it can make her attempts at self-effacement all the more overwhelming. Yes, from the outset it’s a book that deals with suicide, depression, hospitalizations, and family trauma (...

A couple months ago I asked for a recommendation from a local bookseller I trust and he handed me Yiyun Li’s “Dear Friend…” I’ve since thanked him. The dense, aphorism-filled pages of Yiyun Li’s essay collection demand a slow read. It’s a rich book of meditations on writing, family, friendship, and mental illness. I’d call it quiet were its subject matter not so fraught with violence and clear-eyed (sometimes near ruthless) self-examination and examination of others. I found myself underlying fa...