My Life as a Villainess by Laura Lippman
This collection of fifteen personal essays covers many aspects of Lippman's life, from her later in life motherhood to her time as a rookie reporter in Waco, Texas to the wonder of reheating leftovers in a double boiler.
The book is organized into four sections, each with a few essays, along with an introduction that tells us how she came to write personal essays in the first place. I came to this book having enjoyed her fiction and found myself quickly enjoying her open style when discussing different aspects and events in her life. As she says in the introduction, there are portions of her life not covered here, but what she has included is interesting and relatable.
Her opening essay is on the mental struggle for women between the body they have and the body society tells them they should have. It's magnificent.
The essays aren't in chronological order about her life, but are grouped roughly into four sections where they feel that they belong with each other.
I read this book one essay at a time, taking breaks between them and found them emotionally moving and reminding me of aspects of my own life.
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