The Argonauts

I highly recommend reading anything by Maggie Nelson, just do not buy this book from Amazon right now. They have editions that have an enormous misprint and it is VERY irritating that there is not an option to just get my back. I am a reader who underlines and makes notes in the margins of the books I read and cannot now return the book. I am going to contact Graywolf Press and hope they will send me another copy printed correctly. Amazon, I need your customer service to contact me regarding this error, that is if a representative actually sees and reads this. Very disappointed.

I loved this book. I won't say anything so daft as "I feel like I know Maggie Nelson..." but I will say that I feel like I know exactly what she wants me to know about her. The list of mentions concerning her honesty and her biographical style is long and I certainly don't have a qualm with that opinion; however, what struck me most was her intimacy. Not simply the intimacy of the shared details, but the intimacy of the style of the "log" so-to-speak. The book is written as a log of a slice of her life and though the details are the vehicle, the fragmentary thoughts - time, location, train-of-thought, &c. - are the real message and they include the reader in a way that feels very intimate while also being pensive enough to remind that reader that it is a labor rather than an extended share-sessionImpressive work - I hope many other men are taking it up

It was a bit confusing because apparently the author's wife goes by he him pronouns and underwent medical transition but identifies as female and butch still. I actually am of the exact same identity profile and I know he/him lesbians are a thing, but I still did not understand what was going on, and I dunno if she's purposely messing with the reader or what because there aren't any context clues. This book is largely about the author's relationship, so that makes it confusing. She talks about straight women loving her husband and being strange, so that's confusing – – like why wouldn't a straight woman be attracted to a man. But then it turns out he doesn't identify as a man. I don't know, maybe I'm too hung up on this or it's because I have autism, but I found it overly Cryptic even though I am from within the trans community. However there were many parts that hit me really deeply and I think this is really personal layered complicated and beautiful.

FANTASTIC book. Maggie Nelson writes candidly and fiercely about what it means to be queer, to be a family, and to be human. I cannot recommend this book enough. HOWEVER, the book I ordered and received from Amazon was printed incorrectly, with pages missing and ordered incorrectly. I would highly recommend buying this book elsewhere(Read: Support a local bookstore!)

This was a book assigned to me for a woman's sexuality & their bodies course. I found it to be somewhat difficult to understand. I had to look up various words in order to follow along with the story.

Every line in this book feels worthy of deep meditation. It reads like a wonderful cross between a memoir, a novel, and poetry. I read it in one all-consuming sitting.I've read lots of queer literature, queer philosophy, and queer theory in the past decade, but this book made me feel more introspective, thoughtful, and curious about gender, femininity, motherhood, and sex than ever before. Nelson's references to feminist and queer theorists make you feel like you're "in" on something if you've read them, or serve as a great contextualizing introduction if you haven't.I'm absolutely in love with this book. It may be because it was so easy for me to see myself in her writing, but it may also be because she says so many true things that I haven't been able to voice, even to myself.

okay wow, what did i just read?! the argonauts = an astounding meditation on gender, and sex, and motherhood, and family, and longing, and the limits of language...on the possibilities of love.maggie nelson has produced a robust, incredibly smart work of "autotheory." i don't think i've read anything like it before. i still feel dazed by the power of her prose, by her ability to synthesize information, observation, emotion. i've been pushed and discomforted and expanded as a reader.what would it mean to live in a world beyond binaries? what would it mean to live from a place of uncompromising freedom? provocative, bold, honest. highly recommended. five big stars.

I read this with a book club, if it were not for the book club I would have never picked it up in the first place.(I got the Kindle copy that lacks certain notations available in the print edition.)This book seems to be a love letter to/about Maggie's partner, and the dependency of her own identity on her partner's identity. At times it's very vulnerable and honest, at other times it's insufferably pretentious and inaccessible. All in all, Maggie is a very gifted writer and extremely smart but lives in worlds of academia/gender identity that don't intersect with mine enough to fully connect with this text. If I was a gender studies/psych major I probably would have liked it a lot more.I probably won't read another Maggie Nelson book but I'm glad I can say I've read one.