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Tonight I'm Someone Else: Essays
A highly anticipated collection, from the writer Maggie Nelson has called, “bracingly good…refreshing and welcome,” that explores the myriad ways in which desire and commodification intersect.
From graffiti gangs and Grand Theft Auto to sugar daddies, Schopenhauer, and a deadly game of Russian roulette, in these essays, Chelsea Hodson probes her own desires to examine where the physical and the proprietary collide. She asks what our privacy, our intimacy, and our own bodies are worth in the increasingly digital world of liking, linking, and sharing.
Starting with Hodson’s own work experience, which ranges from the mundane to the bizarre—including modeling and working on a NASA Mars mission— Hodson expands outward, looking at the ways in which the human will submits, whether in the marketplace or in a relationship. Both tender and jarring, this collection is relevant to anyone who’s ever searched for what the self is worth.
Hodson’s accumulation within each piece is purposeful, and her prose vivid, clear, and sometimes even shocking, as she explores the wonderful and strange forms of desire. This is a fresh, poetic debut from an exciting emerging voice, in which Hodson asks, “How much can a body endure?” And the resounding answer: "Almost everything."
From graffiti gangs and Grand Theft Auto to sugar daddies, Schopenhauer, and a deadly game of Russian roulette, in these essays, Chelsea Hodson probes her own desires to examine where the physical and the proprietary collide. She asks what our privacy, our intimacy, and our own bodies are worth in the increasingly digital world of liking, linking, and sharing.
Starting with Hodson’s own work experience, which ranges from the mundane to the bizarre—including modeling and working on a NASA Mars mission— Hodson expands outward, looking at the ways in which the human will submits, whether in the marketplace or in a relationship. Both tender and jarring, this collection is relevant to anyone who’s ever searched for what the self is worth.
Hodson’s accumulation within each piece is purposeful, and her prose vivid, clear, and sometimes even shocking, as she explores the wonderful and strange forms of desire. This is a fresh, poetic debut from an exciting emerging voice, in which Hodson asks, “How much can a body endure?” And the resounding answer: "Almost everything."
196 pages, Paperback
First published June 5, 2018
188 people are currently reading
16999 people want to read
About the author
Chelsea Hodson
7 books230 followersChelsea Hodson is the author of the forthcoming essay collection Tonight I'm Someone Else (Henry Holt, 2018) and the chapbook Pity the Animal (Future Tense / Emily Books, 2014). She is a graduate of the MFA program at Bennington College, and was a PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 392 reviews
June 10, 2018
3.5 stars
A vulnerable essay collection about desire, intimacy, and what our bodies can endure under physical and emotional duress. Chelsea Hodson's writing felt the strongest in her longer-form narrative essays, when she had a structure to work with. My two favorites include "Pity the Animal," a smart and incisive examination of female objectification and how Hodson herself has dealt with it, as well as "I'm Only a Thousand Miles Away," an innocent essay about obsessive childhood crushes that turns into something much more sinister and scary. At its best, this collection details the pain and the wonder of growing up and being a grown up, prickly and thwarted desires and all.
I wanted Hodson to go deeper or clearer with some of these essays. Some of the pieces contain several little snippets pieced together that I felt confused by, both on a structural level and on a sentence level. For example, in "Simple Woman," she writes "Money needs us, depends on us to mint it... Dreams, on the other hand, don't need us at all." While I found the observation about money fascinating, I would have appreciated a more prolonged exploration of what she means about dreams. I felt this sense of disorientation at several points in the book. Hodson wrote several interesting one-liners that I wish evolved into more, either more commentary or self-insight, similar to some of my favorite essay collections, like The Empathy Exams , or Bad Feminist , or So Sad Today .
Overall, a good book I would recommend to those interested by the synopsis, as well as those who enjoy vulnerability and self-disclosure in brief, dashing snippets. I am curious to read what Hodson writes next and appreciate all the effort she put into this collection.
A vulnerable essay collection about desire, intimacy, and what our bodies can endure under physical and emotional duress. Chelsea Hodson's writing felt the strongest in her longer-form narrative essays, when she had a structure to work with. My two favorites include "Pity the Animal," a smart and incisive examination of female objectification and how Hodson herself has dealt with it, as well as "I'm Only a Thousand Miles Away," an innocent essay about obsessive childhood crushes that turns into something much more sinister and scary. At its best, this collection details the pain and the wonder of growing up and being a grown up, prickly and thwarted desires and all.
I wanted Hodson to go deeper or clearer with some of these essays. Some of the pieces contain several little snippets pieced together that I felt confused by, both on a structural level and on a sentence level. For example, in "Simple Woman," she writes "Money needs us, depends on us to mint it... Dreams, on the other hand, don't need us at all." While I found the observation about money fascinating, I would have appreciated a more prolonged exploration of what she means about dreams. I felt this sense of disorientation at several points in the book. Hodson wrote several interesting one-liners that I wish evolved into more, either more commentary or self-insight, similar to some of my favorite essay collections, like The Empathy Exams , or Bad Feminist , or So Sad Today .
Overall, a good book I would recommend to those interested by the synopsis, as well as those who enjoy vulnerability and self-disclosure in brief, dashing snippets. I am curious to read what Hodson writes next and appreciate all the effort she put into this collection.
August 17, 2018
Tedious. I couldn’t finish this one, but felt I’d read enough to make a rating. It’s filled with pedestrian MA in Personal Essay passages and aimless coasting and credit card debt-racking (such is our generation’s experience, but I’d love to read someone actually grappling with that).
I’ve read a lot of essay collections in the same vein as this one (I found Hodson’s voice quite similar to Chloe Caldwell’s, for example). I’m coming to think of it as the TED Talk voice of personal essay: constructions like “Doing [thing] while [ambiance]”; lots of references to childhood moments and scenes of early relationships that never cohere into an impression of the person you’re reading tens of pages about. Hodson also has a tendency towards humble-bragging, usually about inconsequential things like being good at easy retail jobs. It’s all disaffection and pretty words with no sense that there’s anything at stake.
I’ve read a lot of essay collections in the same vein as this one (I found Hodson’s voice quite similar to Chloe Caldwell’s, for example). I’m coming to think of it as the TED Talk voice of personal essay: constructions like “Doing [thing] while [ambiance]”; lots of references to childhood moments and scenes of early relationships that never cohere into an impression of the person you’re reading tens of pages about. Hodson also has a tendency towards humble-bragging, usually about inconsequential things like being good at easy retail jobs. It’s all disaffection and pretty words with no sense that there’s anything at stake.
March 17, 2021
I think my problem with this book is that it never really does anything with itself. Here's what I mean. It's a sort of memoir, mostly memoir I would say, and she does not really point anywhere with her life's material, she mostly goes back in forth with her memories. I guess this line, where she can point at something far from herself, maybe coming to a conclusion with what she has, is what to me goes missing. It's about her desires, (a lot about love interests, or her way of being an object of desire herself), her childhood memories, her jobs. I guess having memories to spare is pretty much a vortex, like dreams, we all have them, but you must do more with that material if you want to put it in a book.
June 11, 2018
"Last week, I decided my friend, Erik, was both beautiful and impossible, and I felt it save my life in a way."
Okay friends, I'm going to say some honest things about this book, because I was given a review copy in exchange for an honest review. That quote I used up there is not from final copy so it may not appear as written exactly but I wanted to pull out something to use as an example.
How did you react to that quote? I predict that your overall feelings about this book will have a lot to do with your reaction to the quote. If you felt a resonance with it, you are probably younger than me and this book will be a great read for you and where you are in your time of life. If you rolled your eyes at it, hang on because most of the book is a lot like that, and you are likely not to warm to the navel-gazing essays of this book. I'm almost 40; I felt too old. I remember feeling similar to how she feels in some of this, in other ways I'm of a different generation that was never so willing to give up independence to feel emotionally manipulated by people who don't deserve that power. I think I learned earlier to see people from their perspective instead of only from my own.
So there are individual essays except for me they bleed together quite a bit. Throughout the pieces, the author is referencing someone who she can't let go of, to ruminate (again) about a memory or a feeling, longing for them and wondering about them. There is a lot about finding identity and a place by subverting expectations. There also seems to be a theme of the pursuit of the feeling of complete and utter freedom or abandon, which could also be seen as ultimate selfishness (nobody knows where she has gone) or ultimate recklessness (nobody knows where she is!).
So, I gave this three stars. I felt like the book wasn't for me. But I can see how others might really like it, and for those readers, I would highly recommend it.
Thanks to the publisher for providing access to this title. I discussed it on a book speed dating bonus episode of the Reading Envy Podcast, where I did say I liked it enough to finish it, which I did. This book came out June 5, 2018.
Okay friends, I'm going to say some honest things about this book, because I was given a review copy in exchange for an honest review. That quote I used up there is not from final copy so it may not appear as written exactly but I wanted to pull out something to use as an example.
How did you react to that quote? I predict that your overall feelings about this book will have a lot to do with your reaction to the quote. If you felt a resonance with it, you are probably younger than me and this book will be a great read for you and where you are in your time of life. If you rolled your eyes at it, hang on because most of the book is a lot like that, and you are likely not to warm to the navel-gazing essays of this book. I'm almost 40; I felt too old. I remember feeling similar to how she feels in some of this, in other ways I'm of a different generation that was never so willing to give up independence to feel emotionally manipulated by people who don't deserve that power. I think I learned earlier to see people from their perspective instead of only from my own.
So there are individual essays except for me they bleed together quite a bit. Throughout the pieces, the author is referencing someone who she can't let go of, to ruminate (again) about a memory or a feeling, longing for them and wondering about them. There is a lot about finding identity and a place by subverting expectations. There also seems to be a theme of the pursuit of the feeling of complete and utter freedom or abandon, which could also be seen as ultimate selfishness (nobody knows where she has gone) or ultimate recklessness (nobody knows where she is!).
So, I gave this three stars. I felt like the book wasn't for me. But I can see how others might really like it, and for those readers, I would highly recommend it.
Thanks to the publisher for providing access to this title. I discussed it on a book speed dating bonus episode of the Reading Envy Podcast, where I did say I liked it enough to finish it, which I did. This book came out June 5, 2018.
December 29, 2017
"For our high school graduation party, our school hired a hypnotist. My best friend volunteered herself, went onstage, fell asleep, and then he had her dancing and singing Backstreet Boys songs. When she woke up again, she walked back to her seat and I tried to tell her what she'd done while she was out, but she said she was awake the whole time. It was easier to just do what he wanted me to do, she said, and I knew what she meant."
A fucking masterpiece.
A fucking masterpiece.
October 24, 2022
the way i would describe this book would be a cheese board.
it's just an assortment of different kinds of cheese, an occasional cracker, and a bunch of shit for decoration that no one ever really touches. they present it to u as an appetiser, but u never really get anything out of it except a stale piece of parmesan that leaves ur mouth dry.
it's just an assortment of different kinds of cheese, an occasional cracker, and a bunch of shit for decoration that no one ever really touches. they present it to u as an appetiser, but u never really get anything out of it except a stale piece of parmesan that leaves ur mouth dry.
January 10, 2022
No lol
June 19, 2018
I read the inside cover before I bought this book and read it again after I finished. And, I can't say that the promise matches my perceptions. Hodson is a skilled writer, but that is all that I can say to recommend Tonight I'm Someone Else.
This collection of essays reads more like an unedited diary (albeit by a talented writer) than a published collection of essays. And, the organization - from long paragraphs of careful, beautifully written prose to simple lines separated by paragraph breaks - was not cohesive in terms of form.
After 191 pages, I did not have a real sense of who the author is or what the purpose of this book really was - other than a navel-gazing recounting of Hodson's many crushes, infatuations and purposeful (?) attempts to be victimized and violated.
While I appreciate the author's honesty - and much of this book felt brutally honest - I felt that Hodson was withholding what was truly real. What was withheld could have made this book, the author and her story more sympathetic, more meaningful, more interesting and most importantly, more human. I wish that Hodson would have gone deeper, as I am certain that she has a compelling and important story to tell.
This collection of essays reads more like an unedited diary (albeit by a talented writer) than a published collection of essays. And, the organization - from long paragraphs of careful, beautifully written prose to simple lines separated by paragraph breaks - was not cohesive in terms of form.
After 191 pages, I did not have a real sense of who the author is or what the purpose of this book really was - other than a navel-gazing recounting of Hodson's many crushes, infatuations and purposeful (?) attempts to be victimized and violated.
While I appreciate the author's honesty - and much of this book felt brutally honest - I felt that Hodson was withholding what was truly real. What was withheld could have made this book, the author and her story more sympathetic, more meaningful, more interesting and most importantly, more human. I wish that Hodson would have gone deeper, as I am certain that she has a compelling and important story to tell.
May 5, 2018
Chelsea Hodson is somewhere between poet and magician. Her sleight of hand is dazzling, weaving dark themes and just the right amount of vulnerable heart into these essays, whether they be meaty and full or broken into sharp diamond-like shards of prose. I'm not sure I know another writer who can be so hard and soft at the same time. And don't overlook the humor herein--it's the kind of sharp wit that reminds me of Fran Lebowitz or the songs of PJ Harvey. This book is an amazement.
August 22, 2018
While this collection had some good chapters, there were moments when my attention started to wander and my thoughts could've been titled Tonight I'm Reading Something Else. Okay, that was an easy joke, so I should mention that it worked best when Hodson wrote about childhood / teen / college years - it was then things were pretty engaging. In 'I'm Only a Thousand Miles Away' she speaks of her attractive friend hooking up with an attractive guy (during the high school years) --
"Our friends were the kind of people who made things happen, and we were the kind who waited for other people's magic to touch us . . . we imagined the event so thoroughly that it became ours, too."
Not that I wanted to be reminded of my own adolescence (no thank you!), but Hodson effectively captured some truths / experiences common to a North American teenager. However, after reading a handful of other female-authored memoirs / essay collections (like those by Jessi Klein or Sloane Crosley - both recommended ) in the last two years I thought this one fell a little short of the mark.
"Our friends were the kind of people who made things happen, and we were the kind who waited for other people's magic to touch us . . . we imagined the event so thoroughly that it became ours, too."
Not that I wanted to be reminded of my own adolescence (no thank you!), but Hodson effectively captured some truths / experiences common to a North American teenager. However, after reading a handful of other female-authored memoirs / essay collections (like those by Jessi Klein or Sloane Crosley - both recommended ) in the last two years I thought this one fell a little short of the mark.
March 27, 2018
Reading this book felt like giving it direct access to my brain + a high-level security clearance & letting it cause as much chaos as it wanted in there.
January 18, 2019
I was introduced to vignette and segmented essays in my first MFA craft class by Melissa Febos and have been reading them ever since. They sparked something inside me: I had no idea you could do it like that. Early in the semester she distributed a photocopied section of Maggie Nelson's 'Bluets', which I had trouble finding *anywhere* when I sought after reading the whole thing. Now that Nelson is a household name things that's changed. It was 'Bluets' and Nick Flynn's 'Ticking Of The Bomb' that inspired me to want to write my own vignettes but it's Chelsea Hodson's "collection of essays" 'Tonight I'm Someone Else' that makes me want to stop.
This book floated around my radar for some time. I saw it come out, was curious about it as I am always intrigued by unique essay collections, and found writers I follow commenting on it--how inspiring and well written it is. So when I found it on the library shelf, I nabbed it. The short paragraphs opening the first essay put my brain into vignette gear. Often writers make intricate lattice patterns on the page with their stories, relating history, investigative work they did on subjects of their interest, memory, et al. and I figured I was in for another. She was writing press releases for NASA's Mars Mission in college as a side job: fascinating. (This might be the highlight of the book.) But just 60 pages in the essays became sentences, one and a few at a time, between centered bullet points. The sentences were beautiful but meaningless, reading like inside jokes Hodson has with herself and existential woes only relevant to her.
Hodson's stories became repetitive: about men and boys she admired from a distance and then suddenly, from their bed; friends she road bikes with in the dessert; people from her life she no longer knows that are fleeting characters (past co-workers, summer camp friends, strangers she's obsessed with) that don't really tell us anything. She envies them and tries to act like them but can't. Because she had a normal life growing up, she declares, she asks a friend (or was it a boyfriend?) to hit her as hard as he can and glows in his ambivalence.
The more I read, her lists of sentences she calls essays read like Instagram poetry: "Being underestimated is a form of power." "Specificity is a commodity and I'm saving up, up, up." "Being wrong feels better than being right because that means there's still somewhere left to go." "No one acted afraid of me. That's how I knew I should become fearless."
And it goes on like this. I wanted her to make a connection because I couldn't find one. Maybe it's space? Desperation? Working as a model? The desert? Being aware of how beautiful and mysterious you are but doing nothing with that vulnerability (or rather, self-confidence) is not an essay. There was no perspective here and as a reader I was bored by her inability to drive any of these essays home.
As a writer of personal essays I normally do not review essay collections or memoirs. It doesn't feel like my place to judge peoples' lives. I understand how hard and complicated it is to make sense of yourself on the page. It involves introspection, examining yourself for other people, and editing your life. But the writing here was so self-serving it made me question my interest in the genre for the first time ever. I've been reading memoirs and essay collections since I was a teen, before I realized I was actually a writer. If this is what the world of personal nonfiction is looking up to, I don't want to be a part of it. I've been feeling a pull to write about something bigger than myself because how long can a person go on?
Hodson has beautiful ideas in this book, and a few great truths, but they are hardly essays.
This book floated around my radar for some time. I saw it come out, was curious about it as I am always intrigued by unique essay collections, and found writers I follow commenting on it--how inspiring and well written it is. So when I found it on the library shelf, I nabbed it. The short paragraphs opening the first essay put my brain into vignette gear. Often writers make intricate lattice patterns on the page with their stories, relating history, investigative work they did on subjects of their interest, memory, et al. and I figured I was in for another. She was writing press releases for NASA's Mars Mission in college as a side job: fascinating. (This might be the highlight of the book.) But just 60 pages in the essays became sentences, one and a few at a time, between centered bullet points. The sentences were beautiful but meaningless, reading like inside jokes Hodson has with herself and existential woes only relevant to her.
Hodson's stories became repetitive: about men and boys she admired from a distance and then suddenly, from their bed; friends she road bikes with in the dessert; people from her life she no longer knows that are fleeting characters (past co-workers, summer camp friends, strangers she's obsessed with) that don't really tell us anything. She envies them and tries to act like them but can't. Because she had a normal life growing up, she declares, she asks a friend (or was it a boyfriend?) to hit her as hard as he can and glows in his ambivalence.
The more I read, her lists of sentences she calls essays read like Instagram poetry: "Being underestimated is a form of power." "Specificity is a commodity and I'm saving up, up, up." "Being wrong feels better than being right because that means there's still somewhere left to go." "No one acted afraid of me. That's how I knew I should become fearless."
And it goes on like this. I wanted her to make a connection because I couldn't find one. Maybe it's space? Desperation? Working as a model? The desert? Being aware of how beautiful and mysterious you are but doing nothing with that vulnerability (or rather, self-confidence) is not an essay. There was no perspective here and as a reader I was bored by her inability to drive any of these essays home.
As a writer of personal essays I normally do not review essay collections or memoirs. It doesn't feel like my place to judge peoples' lives. I understand how hard and complicated it is to make sense of yourself on the page. It involves introspection, examining yourself for other people, and editing your life. But the writing here was so self-serving it made me question my interest in the genre for the first time ever. I've been reading memoirs and essay collections since I was a teen, before I realized I was actually a writer. If this is what the world of personal nonfiction is looking up to, I don't want to be a part of it. I've been feeling a pull to write about something bigger than myself because how long can a person go on?
Hodson has beautiful ideas in this book, and a few great truths, but they are hardly essays.
May 27, 2022
Recensione per Leggere Distopico e Fantascienza Oggi per la rubrica "Dietro l'angolo". 😊
https://www.leggeredistopico.com/2022...
https://www.leggeredistopico.com/2022...
February 4, 2019
If I'd read this book a decade ago, I probably would have loved it. It sounds like other authors I read at the time, and, especially, like what I myself wrote and felt at a particularly angsty period of my life. Now, however, ten years older, I find myself annoyed by the stilted narcissism of the sentences. There are interesting thoughts and stories throughout the book, but it all feels exaggeratedly detached and pretentious. The author obsesses over her own life so well that I felt claustrophobic pressed so close to her longing and intense insecurity. I can see why she would want to be the Someone Else the title alludes to, but not once in this collection does she seem to achieve that goal for herself.
April 10, 2024
I put Cody in an essay once before, but I wrote it wrong; I made him the villain. I forgot women can be wrong, too- I forgot I could be. Against all logic, I perceived touch from a burned hand as a form of greatness. I hope to make a mistake like that again someday. (15)
How lovely to be young and not know any better. I fell in love with anyone with a scar on their face. (27)
The fortune-teller looked at my black clothes and told me, You are an artist and you are very sad. I forget what she told the painter. It was a bad reading, but it was a strangely intimate act. The painter smiled at me as the fortune teller looked for something to say. It was the kind of thing that bonds you forever. But in New York, you can make a friend like that, do something you've never done with anyone, have the best intentions to see each other, and then disappear. (33)
How can I trust love if I can't ever truly touch it? I can touch a body, a face, a man, I can even feel a heart beating- what other proof of life is there? But physicality is not love. Bruises on a shoulder blade, a body on my body, a paycheck, a love letter- all innocent symptoms of a hungry disease. I starve myself until I can't. I love until I die. (34)
Don't you know you can't trust a writer? She'll see a cigarette and call it a house fire. She'll take a suggestion and turn it into a crime scene. She'll wrap herself up in caution tape. She'll write you down. (53)
When my heart was broken for the first time, my friend said, Maybe this will be good for your art, and he was right. (62)
Strangers are the only perfect people- that's why I keep collecting them, that's why I see myself as a stranger and I love her better. I barely know her. (159)
Every song is on the verge of ending but not every song is beautiful, every human is on the verge of dying but I am not in love with everyone. I am in love with temporality, with the way we looked at each other for one night. (187)
How lovely to be young and not know any better. I fell in love with anyone with a scar on their face. (27)
The fortune-teller looked at my black clothes and told me, You are an artist and you are very sad. I forget what she told the painter. It was a bad reading, but it was a strangely intimate act. The painter smiled at me as the fortune teller looked for something to say. It was the kind of thing that bonds you forever. But in New York, you can make a friend like that, do something you've never done with anyone, have the best intentions to see each other, and then disappear. (33)
How can I trust love if I can't ever truly touch it? I can touch a body, a face, a man, I can even feel a heart beating- what other proof of life is there? But physicality is not love. Bruises on a shoulder blade, a body on my body, a paycheck, a love letter- all innocent symptoms of a hungry disease. I starve myself until I can't. I love until I die. (34)
Don't you know you can't trust a writer? She'll see a cigarette and call it a house fire. She'll take a suggestion and turn it into a crime scene. She'll wrap herself up in caution tape. She'll write you down. (53)
When my heart was broken for the first time, my friend said, Maybe this will be good for your art, and he was right. (62)
Strangers are the only perfect people- that's why I keep collecting them, that's why I see myself as a stranger and I love her better. I barely know her. (159)
Every song is on the verge of ending but not every song is beautiful, every human is on the verge of dying but I am not in love with everyone. I am in love with temporality, with the way we looked at each other for one night. (187)
July 16, 2018
i enjoyed every single one of these essays but also none of them will stay with me beyond this reading? That's not to say the writing isn't incredible, that Chelsea Hodson doesn't have a natural talent with narrative prose, and that I won't read everything she ever produces — because i will. I just don't feel any of these were something I heavily related to. Or that I need to reread because it wasn't the right time.
February 17, 2019
This was fabulous! I think this is getting over looked. Check it out. I really enjoyed it.
April 7, 2023
I revelled in this book on a language level—very delicious, like prose poetry. The style is memorable for me. I read another review that compared Hodson to a Lana del Ray + Jenny Holzer's literary love child and I totally get that aspect and thought it was fun. Some of the themes resonated deeply, some repelled (the longing for and glorification of masculinity and violence grew more difficult and repetitive as the essays go on), but I enjoyed mulling over the loose-yet-purposeful patterns in the book, even if a few essays blurred together.
My biggest reservation is how some essays perform vulnerability while being vague and withholding. A few talk about how Hodson/the speaker thinks she's "bad" and is hurting people, doing things in secret, wondering about morality etc. and seem to gesture at some sort of infidelity (or infidelities?). Yet these moments of "badness" are the most artfully obscured and glossed over. The bad things that she does are never named. In fact, they are victimless crimes—we never even understand who she is hurting or why. Or even how! In the same way that violence is romanticized, so too is this "badness," but with less specificity. Thus, all the time grappling with questions of good / bad / morality feel hollow.
There is less risk and reckoning, which diminishes the sense of stakes. We never really "go there," to that difficult place, despite what the essays about asking boyfriends to punch us in the face and essays about playing games with knives will have you believe.
My biggest reservation is how some essays perform vulnerability while being vague and withholding. A few talk about how Hodson/the speaker thinks she's "bad" and is hurting people, doing things in secret, wondering about morality etc. and seem to gesture at some sort of infidelity (or infidelities?). Yet these moments of "badness" are the most artfully obscured and glossed over. The bad things that she does are never named. In fact, they are victimless crimes—we never even understand who she is hurting or why. Or even how! In the same way that violence is romanticized, so too is this "badness," but with less specificity. Thus, all the time grappling with questions of good / bad / morality feel hollow.
There is less risk and reckoning, which diminishes the sense of stakes. We never really "go there," to that difficult place, despite what the essays about asking boyfriends to punch us in the face and essays about playing games with knives will have you believe.
October 29, 2018
“All characters appearing in this work are you. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely you.” - Chelsea Hodson, Tonight I'm Someone Else: Essays
“Tonight I’m Someone Else” is a collection of essays about Chelsea’s work, life, and relationships. It is packed with vulnerability, emotions, and recklessness in between switching careers and getting into relationships. The thing with reading an essay collection is you only get a fraction of each and everything and as much as you wanna get deeper and explore more of it all you get are fragments that makes you leave wanting more. This gave me so much “feels” that my phone’s full of relateable sentences from the book. 🤣 Well written and definitely a book I will re-read in the future.
“Tonight I’m Someone Else” is a collection of essays about Chelsea’s work, life, and relationships. It is packed with vulnerability, emotions, and recklessness in between switching careers and getting into relationships. The thing with reading an essay collection is you only get a fraction of each and everything and as much as you wanna get deeper and explore more of it all you get are fragments that makes you leave wanting more. This gave me so much “feels” that my phone’s full of relateable sentences from the book. 🤣 Well written and definitely a book I will re-read in the future.
March 29, 2018
I loved this book so so so so much. Finally a book of essays where the writer doesn't tell you how they want us to be, but how we are.
August 13, 2018
Je serais un grand lecteur de poésie si la poésie était toujours comme ça.
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October 28, 2022if i left books unfinished i would have stopped this ages ago. big sigh. very i have a degree in creative writing
July 17, 2018
Um dos melhores livros que eu li esse ano e na vida. Extremamente sensível, único, bem escrito. O estilo abstrato e quase surreal dos ensaios me fez passear pelos pensamentos dela e em seu "universo". É até difícil encontrar palavras para falar sobre esse livro, considerando o quanto gostei dele. Os ensaios são cheios de realidade, misturadas com sonho. Cada parágrafo é um mundo dentro de si mesmo. É louco e extremamente reconhecível. O livro é uma reflexão arrebatadora sobre o que é ser mulher e ser artista. Sobre autoconsciência. Os textos são uma mistura de ideias românticas e hedonistas. É um livro sobre estar vivo e sobre querer viver.
March 8, 2018
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3
November 17, 2020
3.5 stars
if you asked me what this book was about, i couldn't tell you. it's a blend of personal essay that tries reaching for a universal truth; maybe landing there and maybe not. the reason i gave this a 3.5 star rating is because there's a feeling in me that there is something more in between the lines and it was fun to read. and i suspect it may be fun to read in the future to see what unfolds. or, of course, i could be wrong and there was no point at all and it was just a bunch of rambling. but it coated my brain in a whimsical cool girl haze while i was reading and sometimes that's enough.
if you asked me what this book was about, i couldn't tell you. it's a blend of personal essay that tries reaching for a universal truth; maybe landing there and maybe not. the reason i gave this a 3.5 star rating is because there's a feeling in me that there is something more in between the lines and it was fun to read. and i suspect it may be fun to read in the future to see what unfolds. or, of course, i could be wrong and there was no point at all and it was just a bunch of rambling. but it coated my brain in a whimsical cool girl haze while i was reading and sometimes that's enough.
March 10, 2022
i’ve been wanting to read this book for awhile. i think i really really liked it but the reason for the four star rating as opposed to five stars is because sometimes she just lost me. i would find my way again, but it’s annoying getting lost. i say this about every single. author. whose books i read. whether they’re fiction or nonfiction. but chelsea hodson really gets it. i think i say that about so many people because they’re all women. there’s just so many great lines and sections in this book. i wasn’t as big of a fan of the the first few essays as compared to the the ones in the middle, and even the ones at the end. but they were all written beautifully. she writes the way i hope one day i can write. she puts into words feelings i’m not sure how to describe. and that’s how i know she’s a really good writer. like sometimes i ache for so many things i think i can feel my bones growing the way i did when i was a child. i like trying to be everything all at once. ive listened to music i hated until i loved it. some people have needed me but the ones i wanted to the most never did. i love until i die. i want to be a building that bends with the wind. my suffering feels religious when i do it right. every time i lie i surprise myself less. i pity the animal that has no animal in it. i spent so much of my youth waiting for something to happen. it’s true that i want what i cant have, but it was never my intention to please freud. i’d rather die than be ignored. i could be a beacon of light, i could understand someone for once. can you hear me calling out to you, animal to animal? i’m trying to say what i mean, without any stylistic interruptions. i don’t regret what i’ve done, because if i didn’t do it then, i would have done it later. i believe certain mistakes are imprinted in our dna: it’s only a matter of time before we make them. i’ve never witnessed either of my parents in an act of self sabotage, but i must have learned it from somewhere. i long to be hung out to dry, to wave in the wind, to be made good. i’m not explaining it right. i’m leaving out the best parts. strangers are the only perfect people. everyone is better in theory. i have so much hope i don’t even know what i hope for. i’m like a dog—i love to hear my name in other people’s mouths. and that’s not even all. my favorite essays were the new love, the end of longing, swollen and victorious, artist statement, halfway out the door, the id speaks, mid-transformation, small crimes, and when i turn.
7, 13, 16, 21, 23, 27, 30, 33, 34, 38-39, 44, 46-53, 57-60, 62, 63, 70, 71, 83, 84, 88, 92, 98, 103, 113, 116, 117, 120, 127, 129, 130, 138, 140-142, 147, 158-161, 167-169, 178, 182-186, 188, 189
7, 13, 16, 21, 23, 27, 30, 33, 34, 38-39, 44, 46-53, 57-60, 62, 63, 70, 71, 83, 84, 88, 92, 98, 103, 113, 116, 117, 120, 127, 129, 130, 138, 140-142, 147, 158-161, 167-169, 178, 182-186, 188, 189
June 27, 2018
i read pity the animal when it came out in 2014 and loved it, and in the four years since then, i've been eagerly anticipating the release of this essay collection. idk if my literary preferences have changed in those years or if i raised my expectations so high that i was bound to be disappointed, but i ended up feeling much more ambivalent about this book than i expected to. there are some great essays in here-- "pity the animal" holds up really well, and "i'm only a thousand miles away," "swollen and victorious," and "small crimes" are equally strong-- but many of the essays felt a bit bogged down by too many profound-sounding but ultimately empty statements about love. the high points of tonight i'm someone else almost always occur when hodson recounts something concrete and specific, a childhood memory or a quote from a book, rather than trying to put words to something nebulous and impossible to grasp. part of what i loved so much about "pity the animal," which shines through in all the other essays collected here as well, is how well hodson is able to highlight the way banal moments can feel more meaningful to the person who experiences them than much more obviously important moments of their lives. she's able to articulate a lot of the strange but likely universal thought processes i recognize in myself but often don't know how exactly to describe, and for that reason alone i'd say this is a worthwhile read. almost all of these essay circle around the themes of love, money, and longing in some way, and while some of hodson's insights become repetitive because of this, it also gives her a chance to dig into these topics from many different angles, a process that's very cool to be privy to.
December 9, 2024
Update: After a second read, 6 years later, I feel differently about this book. I related to many of the essays from a younger phase of life but less so today.
Original review:
This book changed my perspective on what an essay collection can look like. There were no "formulas" or typical portrayals of universal truths, and each essay was structured with multiple section breaks, reminiscent of Mary Robison's "Why Did I Ever?" This style may not work for everyone, but it very much works for me. These essays were unusual, and stunning.
Chelsea Hodson is a kindred spirit (maybe even an Enneagram Type 4?), and each essay contained stand-out lines that either gave me chills or made me catch my breath at the accuracy of relatable emotion.
E.g. "I was always drawn to people who were the opposite of me. If I couldn’t be brave, I could at least be near their courage. If I couldn’t make trouble myself, maybe I could be guilty by association."
"I’m beginning to understand my curiosity as a form of destruction. I approach with my questions and my desire to know someone, but I always take it too far, stay out too late, get a little too close."
"I’m happy to be warned of beauty, but I will not listen. I aim my whole world in that direction, I don’t care what comes after."
"I’m trying to write something so good, so pure, so perfect that I’ll never have to have children; I’ll have created something that can stand in for me, that can live on after me."
Original review:
This book changed my perspective on what an essay collection can look like. There were no "formulas" or typical portrayals of universal truths, and each essay was structured with multiple section breaks, reminiscent of Mary Robison's "Why Did I Ever?" This style may not work for everyone, but it very much works for me. These essays were unusual, and stunning.
Chelsea Hodson is a kindred spirit (maybe even an Enneagram Type 4?), and each essay contained stand-out lines that either gave me chills or made me catch my breath at the accuracy of relatable emotion.
E.g. "I was always drawn to people who were the opposite of me. If I couldn’t be brave, I could at least be near their courage. If I couldn’t make trouble myself, maybe I could be guilty by association."
"I’m beginning to understand my curiosity as a form of destruction. I approach with my questions and my desire to know someone, but I always take it too far, stay out too late, get a little too close."
"I’m happy to be warned of beauty, but I will not listen. I aim my whole world in that direction, I don’t care what comes after."
"I’m trying to write something so good, so pure, so perfect that I’ll never have to have children; I’ll have created something that can stand in for me, that can live on after me."
March 19, 2024
It is funny that even though I am giving this book a lower rating I annotated this one a lot, and it has snippets that are stunning and relatable at times. The essay collection deals with topics like childhood memories and crushes, love interests, and how we perceive love later as an adult, desires and in turn, becoming objects of others' desires. As someone who has a habit of writing journals in this format, I was biased when I started this book. It is an essay collection, and we already know what to expect going into the book, right? However, despite dealing with intriguing topics of day-to-day life I couldn't grasp any depth in the whole collection. While some are more interesting than others, I personally liked her longer writings than short snippets. The longer ones had a narrative style, examples through experiences, and a way of including the readers to feel a relatability factor. It could have been better, but I loved some parts of the book even though all-in-all I wasn't a big fan.
March 18, 2018
Chelsea Hodson is one of 3 or 4 living writers whose prose completely breaks me. I never feel comfortable in her essays... I’m blindfolded, at her mercy. I can’t tell if she’s holding a knife to my throat or her own. It doesn’t matter; someone is going to get hurt, and that’s the point. It’s a strange comparison, but I kept thinking of Flannery O’Connor... another writer whose work is like a mirror held up to the world only with all the bullshit ripped away. Both are fascinated by power and fear, moving closer and closer to the thing that scares you.
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