“What is it about male aloneness that makes it so desirable while female aloneness is seen as less so? What is it about male aloneness that is often seen as a heroic and poetic choice, while female aloneness is generally seen to have come from a lack of options?”
Those two sentences printed on the back of the book alone was enough for me to give this book a chance. Part memoir, part travel journal, Isyana Artharini wonderfully captured female aloneness according to her own experiences, all the while peppering the whole book with references from pop culture, books, music, movies and TV series.
I wondered why this book has such an appeal for me, while it talks about places I haven’t yet visited, books I haven’t yet read, movies I haven’t yet watched, and music I don’t actually listen to. Probably because being a 30-something single woman in this kind of society is never easy, and I share a similar, if not the same, feeling with the author about it. The author has put so much honesty in this book, and the fact that she is a journalist made it exceptionally written. Although I still found grammatical errors here and there (but not too many to be a source of annoyance).
I must thank the author for her honesty, her emotional intensity, and her tendency for overthinking because through this book she gave me aspects of living alone that I haven’t ever thought about. In the end, living alone comes with feelings of loneliness and longing for company, but also contentedness and freedom for having a space of one’s own.
Book details:
I Am My Own Home and other essays, by Isyana Artharini
ISBN: 9786024247560
239 pages, published 2017 by Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia
My rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
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