You Could Make This Place Beautiful
Layered
Artistic
Honest

You Could Make This Place Beautiful A Memoir

Maggie Smith2023
“[Smith]...reminds you that you can...survive deep loss, sink into life’s deep beauty, and constantly, constantly make yourself new.” —Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author The bestselling poet and author of the “powerful” (People) and “luminous” (Newsweek) Keep Moving offers a lush and heartrending memoir exploring coming of age in your middle age. “Life, like a poem, is a series of choices.” 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. You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is an argument for possibility. With a poet’s attention to language and an innovative approach to the genre, Smith reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new. Something beautiful.
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Reviews

Photo of Katelyn Caillouet
Katelyn Caillouet@hellokatelyn
2.5 stars
Nov 11, 2023

There is some beautiful prose in this book, but the constant rumination is difficult to get through.

Book felt very repetitive, wasn't a fan of her directly addressing the "reader" to say what she won't say, went on far too long and shared little perspective on the events. Yes, it's a memoir and therefore only one perspective, but you don't really get a good sense of the other side at all. They are portrayed as a caricature of a bad husband.

Really a mixed bag because I would highlight one passage and cringe-skim through the next.

+3
Photo of Amelia Hruby
Amelia Hruby@ameliajo
5 stars
Sep 9, 2023

A beautiful, heartbreaking, honest book about divorce. Felt like a cross between Maggie Nelson & Glennon Doyle.

+3
Photo of Alejandra RG
Alejandra RG@alerog
5 stars
Mar 10, 2025
Photo of Anna Jacobs
Anna Jacobs@annaljacobs27
5 stars
Mar 8, 2024
+3
Photo of Emma Younger
Emma Younger@emmarain
4 stars
Dec 12, 2023
+3
Photo of Sarah Erle
Sarah Erle@serle
4.5 stars
Nov 15, 2023
Photo of Sarah Bryan
Sarah Bryan @sarahmcbryan
4 stars
May 18, 2023

This book appears on the shelf Funny as hell

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