Cover Image: The Fixed Stars

The Fixed Stars

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Member Reviews

I would definitely recommend this book. A very entertaining, enjoyable, thought provoking memoir, I had enjoyed the author's food blogging and recipes so this was very unexpected. I think that the topic of being true to yourself really resonated.

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In The Fixed Stars, Molly is surprised by her attraction to the prosecutor in a case where she is serving as a juror. She can’t shake the feelings she has toward Nora and ultimately decides to explore them.

Molly and her husband Brandon explore having an open relationship, and eventually separate, then divorce. This memoir is about Molly trying to identify who she really is, versus who she thought she always was.

I did not care for multiple comments Molly made throughout the book about Brandon — Early on, she casually mentions doubt of his pursuit as a restauranteur, which was in fact their primary source of income for several years. After they separated, Molly recalls incidents where she felt almost indignant when family and friends asked about him. Given the circumstances of their split and the length of time they were together as a couple, I could not sympathize with her annoyance over this.

The Fixed Stars is pretty heavy on quotes from other writers and articles. This is something I don’t dislike generally, but the volume felt excessive here. The book is loosely organized in chronological order and wasn’t hard to follow, but it felt piece-y at times. I certainly support the right to change your mind about what you want and to evolve and grow as a person, this book didn’t resonate much with me.

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Love all this author’s books and really appreciated her personal story. Love her writing and am so invested in her life. Highly recommend

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The Fixed Stars is the most recent book from Molly Wizenberg and personally was the most difficult for me to read. Unlike Molly's previous work, I felt we were farther and farther away from the food world that first captivated my attention.

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This memoir from Molly Wizenberg was entertaining, enjoyable, thought provoking, She really went into detail about her life, feelings and emotions and I enjoyed begin able to accompany her on that journey. At times it also caused me to stop and think about my own life, feelings, and experiences. I would definitely recommend this book.

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The Fixed Stars by Molly Wizenberg is a thought-provoking memoir about the author’s decision to turn her marriage upside down. At the beginning, Wizenberg is a seemingly content wife, mother, writer, and co-owner of several successful Seattle restaurants. A chance interaction with a woman who greatly intrigues her causes her to question everything in her life. She embarks on a personal journey, and with her husband’s approval, begins dating women outside her marriage. The memoir is largely made up of her ruminations and what has been said by others about marriage, relationships, and sexual orientation. The segues can be a little awkward, but Wizenberg covers a myriad of topics. Some including: marriage, motherhood, sexual fluidity, sexual orientation, guilt, selfishness/selflessness, gender, privilege, etc. Her journey is very relatable and it caused me to ponder my own life, marriage, children, and decisions we’ve made as a couple. Overall, a very interesting memoir on marriage and Wizenberg’s personal journey.

Thank you Abrams and NetGalley for providing this ARC.

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I wanted to love this. Molly Wizenberg is such a great writer and this book was no exception. But something here kept me from connecting to the book. It was enjoyable, but I would not say it was a must read.

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I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

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I haven't read Wizenburg's pervious books but this memoir is powerful and poignant. Her writing is beautiful and thoughtful and her honesty and candor make it hard to put down. I liked how she used texts and quotes throughout and her reflections on gender, motherhood, marriage and sexuality are raw and relatable.

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I loved Molly Wizenberg's first book and found it spoke deeply to me. The romance of it struck me as so heartfelt and sweet, and the cozy feel of it pulled me in and made me want her as a friend. I did, however, wonder a bit at the perfect storytale of her life, especially knowing a little bit about Delancey after the fact. So reading this third memoir felt at first like a great departure. The tone and style are similar, but this is the writing of a grown woman who has had to reflect and change- and I enjoyed this continuation of her life through the lens of fixed stars and changeable people. Questioning reality instead of simply accepting it as we age is I think an amazing lesson to come away from this with, and whether or not I entirely understand her actions is beside the point. I enjoyed walking along her journey with her one more time. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

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This book was very intriguing. I enjoyed reading about the author's discovery of her sexuality later in life. I have never read a book like it. She delves deep into her inner struggles, as well as, her dating struggles. I enjoyed how open and candid the author was about her marriage and her divorce. I learned a lot about intimacy in relationships. However, about 3/4 into the book, I felt that the book became too clinical with citing studies and other references. I would have rather that the book continued with just her personal story. But this was a really good book. I look forward to more from the author.

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Brave wonderful memoir by one of my favorite authors; what happens if you suddenly discover you are attracted to women and always thought of yourself as heterosexual? This is what happens to Molly, and prompted by the unhappiness in her own marriage, the open things up, and then things drift away. I lvoe this idea of fixed stars, and how really everything is moving.

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Molly Wizenberg was 37 years old, married to her husband of 10 years with a 3 year old daughter, when she was called to jury duty and became completely infatuated with a female prosecutor. This experience catapults her on a journey of self-reflection, evaluation of her marriage, examination of her identity & sexuality, and an exploration of what it means to be a constantly changing self.
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As a writer with other previously published memoirs, Wizenberg wonders, “I built my career as a writer on a certain image, because that image had been true. But now the story I have to tell seems to undo all the ones that came before, the ones people have come to know me by. How does a person write truthfully about one’s life, when it isn’t finished?” I resonated with this, as humans we are always evolving, changing, and growing, what a beautiful gift!!
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While piecing together this book, Wizenberg includes beautiful bits of literature and poetry along with well-researched science, psychology, and gender & sexuality theory to help contextualize her thoughts. She speaks about the work of psychologist Lisa M. Diamond and her analysis that “women show greater variability in the age at which they notice same-sex attractions, question their sexuality, pursue sex with other women, and first identify as non-heterosexual.” This discovery validates the many adult women (myself included) and gender-nonconforming people who no longer identify as straight but also don’t feel like they’ve been hiding in the closet or repressing themselves since childhood. Wizenberg writes about sexual fluidity with such curiosity and tenderness.
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I found so much of myself in this memoir and reveled at how eloquently she put into words so many of the messy thoughts that have previously jumbled around my brain. All in all, I recommend this memoir whole-heartedly, Wizenberg makes science read like poetry and it’s simply a great story.
“I wanted so much to have a story that behaved, but instead I have a self.”

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What an amazing account of a life almost not pursued. Imaging being halfway down a path that is familiar, comfortable and contented, when you encounter someone, forbidden that changes everything. The way you imagine your life path taking and how you define yourself.. Just an intriguing and compelling story!

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This book was very different from anything I have read before.

I enjoyed following Molly and understand her transition at the same time as she does herself. The author has included numerous reflexions and quotes and theories that helped her accept her lived experiences, and provide a useful framework for the reader as well.

The writing is clear and charged with emotion, and finely balanced. I appreciated how the language used to talk about gender differences and sexual preferences evolved to become less simplistic and judgemental, reflecting Molly’s internal growth. I acknowledge that some people may be “offended” And shocked by the lack of subtlety of it in the beginning.

I would have liked to read more about her husband and Ash, as both are incredible forces in her life but not developed in their humanity enough.

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The Fixed Star was such a great memoir! I was really invested and I loved how sexuality and identity was being explored in real time. It felt so raw. I felt like the author’s best friend hearing these stories. I also really appreciated the importance of pronouns being a topic.

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I wanted to like this memoir more than I did. I appreciated reading about Wizenberg's experience coming to terms with her attraction to women, and the world needs more stories about all the varied and valid ways that humans experience and express sexual and romantic attraction throughout their lives. However, this ultimately reads more as a stream of consciousness and feels like its telling might have been better served if there had been more time and distance between the actual events and the book's publication.

The story is raw, and real, and a beautifully intimate time capsule of an intense moment in the author and her family's life - sometimes so much so that you wonder how Wizenberg's perspective on the dissolution of her marriage and the crescendo of her new (and beautiful!) relationships might shift in years to come.

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Fans of Untamed should check out the Fixed Stars. This was a beautiful memoir about love and family, and the constraints to that and how they can be broken. I thoroughly enjoyed.

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I went into this memoir knowing very little about the subject matter and was engrossed from the very beginning. The complexities of relationships have always fascinated me  Wizenberg's ability to share the awakening she had in her late 30s and the path to finding herself was deeply thought-provoking.

Her writing feels like having an intimate conversation with a good friend. Wizenberg shares her unconventional path to discovering her identity and sexual orientation. No stone was left unturned and while it won't be for every reader, I appreciated that she shared the messy journey while also having compassion for the individuals who were also a part of this narrative. It wasn't perfect but I found the writing profoundly powerful and thoughtful and I highly recommend it, especially on audio. 

Thank you to LibroFM, NetGalley, and Abrams Press for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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This book was easy to read. Wizenberg's writing style is conversational and open, but intimate enough to keep me invested and I was eager to keep reading. My only hesitation with this book is that I generally feel that memoir is best when it's about a chapter of life that's at least a bit in the past. I think that most topics/circumstances worthy of memoir are those that take us a long time to unravel as humans, not just writers. This book deals with Wizenberg's life story and evolution, to be sure; but her understanding of her own sexuality and the circumstances that frame this book are so new that I wonder how much deeper, how much richer this memoir would be had Wizenberg waited a bit to write it. This felt especially true as the book progressed and the events she was sharing were relatively present-tense; the writing there fell flat, as if she either couldn't share as much detail/vulnerability or, perhaps, she just hasn't worked through it yet. Still, an enjoyable, interesting, and immersive read.

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