If there were six stars....not only was I smitten by the thoughts, the style, the color, there are a host of references to authors and artists and books to further explore.
Here is Sigrun HodneI's essay I wish I had written: http://www.gwarlingo.com/2013/i-never-knew-how-blue-blueness-could-be-maggie-nel... ( )

EXTREMELY beautiful and lyrical. kind of a dream. a celebration of the color blue and to feeling blue. lovely little book filled with beautiful explorations of what it is to be human, to hurt, to love.. and then throw in a bunch of fun facts and interesting topics and observations. i'm in love Maggie Nelson. you wrote a good one. this is divided into number paragraphs of stunning writing. as if that makes it more paused and each paragraph an important element for the whole ( )

Another Goodreads reviewer wrote that this books is like being locked in a room with the author, the color blue, and the word "fucking." This is an apt description of the book, though I suspect he meant it as a complaint, and I don't. This book is many things I enjoy a lot, and have been thinking about a lot as traits of art--academic, horny, fragmented, obsessive. It also just--doesn't quite hit the mark for me. It is self-indulgent in a way where I cannot slide into the "self" or even enjoy its decadence, for whatever reason. There are some really arresting highs--the author's response to William Gass' bullshit misogyny, the section on a "divine darkness," several unapologetic moments about disliking green. There's also lows--the inspiration porn tone of certain parts of her writing about taking care of a friend who has become quadriparalytic, in particular, is not great. But mostly the problems I had with this book weren't deep lows but simply things I was a little indifferent to, which fell a little flat, which, like, YMMV. ( )

"199. For to wish to forget how much you loved someone - and then, to actually forget - can feel, at times, like the slaughter of a beautiful bird who chose, by nothing short of grace, to make a habitat of your heart." ( )

250 vignettes and thoughts about the colour blue. Bluets are flowers, they are cornflowers in the UK.

Of course I love the gorgeous cover.

Maggie Nelson is becoming a favourite writer. ( )