The Fire Never Goes Out: A Memoir in Pictures

2.5 stars

i always feel terrible giving memoirs less than stellar reviews, because it's the person's life, and putting a rating on what they decide to be vulnerable about and put forward seems really weird and bad.

but ... this book really fell flat for me, and i honestly think it was all in the presentation. i was expecting a much more in-depth story here on what stevenson has struggled with and her experiences over the years, and almost all of it felt kind of surface-level. there were a lot of pieces i found i could relate to, and yet they were immediately whisked away and i wasn't able to understand further. the ending, while the most emotionally resonating part, still felt like it was holding something back from me, and i felt disconnected. (there was even a written line that said: “I won't get into exactly what happened-maybe another time.” reading that made me feel really annoyed.)

i know as the reader i'm not owed any part of a person's life or their vulnerability, but i also then don't completely understand the purpose of this book. i'm familiar with stevenson's work especially from tumblr and twitter some other random places, but have never been an avid follower. i was looking forward to this read in a lot of ways, primarily as a queer person myself who struggles with mental illness and also had a religious background, i thought it would be extremely relatable to me. but it seems like most of what is in here is just a collection of things from her blog from over the years, and i think unless i had been following her blog already and was just enjoying this wrap-up for what it is, the pieces given felt like only a glimpse, and i just had a very hard time connecting or understanding.

i also didn't really like how cheating was portrayed (or rather, glossed over) in this. i understand why, in some ways, and i also understand and can empathize with the concept especially being a queer person falling for someone who's in a relationship with someone else, but the fact that the entire section didn't address once what actually was happening outside of the author's emotional bubble made reading it really hard to understand, actually. it again felt like the narration was holding something vital back from me as i read.

overall i did enjoy some parts, can see and relate to a lot of stevenson's experiences, and i consistently enjoyed her artwork, but the cohesion and connection to the narrative itself fell flat for me.

cw: self harm, disordered eating