Happy Thursday, book friends! It’s time for another tour through my TBR cart. We’ve made it through the Book of the Month shelf of shame, which means it’s on to, well… everything else!

This week’s featured title is…

I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home by Jami Attenberg

The Synopsis:

In this brilliant, fierce, and funny memoir of transformation, Jami Attenberg–described as a “master of modern fiction” (Entertainment Weekly) and the “poet laureate of difficult families” (Kirkus Reviews)–reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. What does it take to devote oneself to art? What does it mean to own one’s ideas? What does the world look like for a woman moving solo through it?

As the daughter of a traveling salesman in the Midwest, Attenberg was drawn to a life on the road. Frustrated by quotidian jobs and hungry for inspiration and fresh experiences, her wanderlust led her across the country and eventually on travels around the globe. Through it all she grapples with questions of mortality, otherworldliness, and what we leave behind.

It is during these adventures that she begins to reflect on the experiences of her youth–the trauma, the challenges, the risks she has taken. Driving across America on self-funded book tours, sometimes crashing on couches when she was broke, she keeps writing: in researching articles for magazines, jotting down ideas for novels, and refining her craft, she grows as an artist and increasingly learns to trust her gut and, ultimately, herself.

Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class, and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring story of finding one’s way home–emotionally, artistically, and physically–and an examination of art and individuality that will resonate with anyone determined to listen to their own creative calling.

Bookshop.org synopsis

Why It’s on my TBR

Attenberg grabbed my attention with All Grown Up, which follows a woman who is single and content in her 30s, but struggling to navigate other people’s perceptions of what it means to be an adult. I read this in my mid-20s, at a time when I was quite confident I would never enter into homeownership or marriage, the “traditional” hallmarks of adulthood. This book resonated with me on a deep level, and I’ve followed Attenberg’s work ever since. Naturally when I saw she had written a memoir, I had to get my hands on it at once.

I think I’m waiting for the right time to read this one, as I am still looking forward to it but haven’t yet picked it up.

Is this one on your list, book friends?