You Could Make This Place Beautiful

 Book 20 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from February 10 - 15

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

published 2023

Summary (via Goodreads)

In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. 

The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy.

My Opinion

4 stars

I added this book to my 'to-read' list after seeing it in Booklist.

I wavered between 3 and 4 stars but rounded up to 4 because of the beautiful lyricism.

I can't explain why I wavered without being a little mean-spirited, something I especially don't enjoy doing when reviewing memoirs.  But my feeling after reading this is that the author avoided delving into subjects further when she didn't want to by saying she was protecting someone or it wasn't her story to tell or something that would sound perfectly reasonable if she didn't also spend pages alluding to the same things.  For example, mentioning multiple times how bitter and contentious the divorce was but saying it's not your place to air it out leaves the reader to draw negative conclusions without the author getting her hands dirty.  We know her ex-husband joined a dating app and moved in with a woman but the author says she won't talk about her own post-divorce dating/sex life (while also coyly saying that she will say everything gets better with age, yet another subtle dig at her ex).

So I liked the writing but I also felt manipulated.