Asa, as I Knew Him

The coming-of-age section was incongruous. I'd rather have known more about Dinah and Asa as grown-ups instead of wading through adolescent shenanigans in the middle. But the beginning and the end were beautifully written, and painfully true. Worth reading to get a feel for all of Kaysen's fine work.

I am only dropping a star because I couldn't get into this the first time I started it. This time around I couldn't put it down. I really enjoy Susanna Kaysen's writing style. This was a well told story, and just the right book to read if you want something to keep you company in a lost-in-a-daydream sort of way.

You loved him. You wanted to know everything about him. He loved you too...and then he didn't. Asa, As I Knew Him, is the story told by Dinah, still in love and still struggling to understand her failed love affair with Asa. Unable to share the details of his life, she creates her own history of him: how he grew up from privileged teenagerhood into the man "who was born to stomp on [her] heart." But Dinah is not pathetic or full of self-pity; her rendering of Asa is compelling and intelligent. Unrequited love is a topic that I usually skip over -- too often the author mistakes pathos for depth of feeling. Kaysen's heroine is utterly believable: I couldn't put the book down.