This is my favorite book of all time.
Sheila plays with form in such exciting ways. This book is written almost like a screenplay, it follows the main character Shiela as she tries and fails to be a good friend, artist, lover, etc.
It’s the sort of book that feels conversational and close to home but sets a strange little fire in you that makes you want to do more and be better.
I read it three times last year and keep it by my bedside in case I need reassurance.
Feb 22, 2025
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Sheila Heti is one of my favorite novelists. Each new book seems to be a step in a larger literary project, or an expansion of a Heti-ian way of thinking. They break aesthetic ground but are also a pleasure to read. How Should a Person Be is key reading for whatever “modern life” is at this point and Motherhood is a daring examination of choice — her use of I Ching coin tosses as a literary mechanism is breathtaking Her latest is Pure Colour, which moves from a fairy-tale-ish story of young city-dwelling adults into a more abstract mythology of grief, art, nature, and beauty. It can’t be described, which is high praise for writing, and yet it’s seamless and joyous. Almost more a painting than a novel.
Feb 22, 2022
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Captures something essential about grief: the longing to cram your entire body into a small space and stay there until a lover pulls you out.
I tried reading it almost two years ago and had to stop because it made me so mad. Now I think it’s brilliant and the thing that made me mad the first time is the most important thing in the book.
Heti is best Canadian writer since Munro and will go down as the best ever if she keeps batting this high.
Sep 8, 2024
Unlike anything I have ever read before. Raw. Dazzling. Paradigm-shifting. Tender. I have just been chewing through it. Underlining every third sentence. I was reading it while eating French toast this morning and leaning over to reach the straw of my iced oat milk latte with my mouth because I literally did not want to take my hands off the pages.
Feb 25, 2024
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Apr 14, 2025
The vines are consuming fire hydrants and power lines and stop signs and every gust of wind is filling the air with a delicious magnificent jasmine scent and I feel delirious and reborn and glad to be alive
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Take a walk, take a whiff :-)
Apr 8, 2025
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This is something that I started doing last year and they are now fundamentally important to me.
A dessert walk is an after dinner stroll you take ideally during sunset. You walk to a grocery store and buy a sweet treat or piece of fruit and a fun beverage. For me usually a peach and a kombucha. You walk for a bit as the sun sets and return when your treats are consumed.
A delicious end to your evening that helps you digest.
Feb 22, 2025