A readable, if uneven collection - ultimately covers too much familiar ground for me, but I'm not sure if that's avoidable with the form. At its best, it's both plangent and lucid.

A wonderful reading experience for the most part. I found it clever and stimulating (I kept googling all the art and artists she refers to), but sometimes rather sentimental. I enjoyed her musings on art more than I enjoyed her post-mortem of her unsuccessful relationship with the unnamed "you" she kept refering to.

Somewhere between 3-3.5 rounded down

A refreshing take on the memoir (in essays), with Pham melding an exploration of her personal and intimate life - specifically a love affair which consumes her - with that of art which moves her, including references to artists such as Agnes Martin, Nan Goldin (who incidentally I learnt about as she is referred to a lot in Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty) and Louise Bourgeois.

Some great insights, some sections which feel quite Myspace/tumblr left me feeling this was a bit of a mixed bag, but the writing is promising and I was engaged throughout.

Pop Song is a book about love and about falling in love — with a place, or a painting, or a person — and the joy and terror inherent in the experience of that love.. it is a memoir told through essays on art and media and the personal invention of her memory.. It takes a walk through her relationships as she wanders through life and places until she accepts the complexity of the world.

Initially it appears like many similar essay collections such as Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror or The Lonely City by Olivia Laing that also centres on art, however as the book progresses Pham chooses to get more personal. it is comfortingly honest as Pham addresses her introspection to an unknown You who app ears to be an ex lover.. its poetic crystalline prose beautifully depicts the authors intense feeling of grief for a moment that is past or lost..

Like a song that feels written just for you, Larissa Pham’s debut work of nonfiction captures the imagination and refuses to let go

Pop Song: Adventures in Art & Intimacy is an exploration of love and art, and how both make you feel. The series of essays charts, loosely, a relationship: how Pham became the person she was when she met this lover, only referred to as "you" throughout, what happened during their relationship, and how it ends. At the same time, the essays also consider other areas like trauma and belonging and explore various artistic forms and media, including painting, photography, and music.

Memoirs and essay collections (this is a hybrid, really) that combine the personal with reflections on particular artists or works are something I only occasionally read, but I do like the ability to learn about and explore particular works of art whilst also getting the insight of something more personal. I don't know much about most of the artists and forms discussed in Pop Song (there's a bit about Anne Carson which is more of my area), but I enjoyed reading about Pham's reactions to and thoughts of them. I also found the 'intimacy' element, with the melancholic 'you' being spoken to, very effective, bringing the sense you get from poetry and songs that you don't quite know the 'you' being referred to is or how much an image of them is being constructed.

If I'm honest, I was drawn initially to the book by the title "Pop Song", which perhaps didn't give me quite the right impression of the book going into it, but this is an interesting sequence of essays exploring emotion in art and life.