I'm going to have trouble explaining why I liked this so much. But let me give it a try.
I've read Helen Garner's fiction before and I love her writing, so that's a big part of it. This is a long collection of her diaries for several years. Much of the time her personal life is a train wreck. She goes thru a couple of bad marriages and is BRUTALLY honest about the declines and falls. There was a strange voyeuristic pleasure at reading about her relationships, I'll admit. At times her work goes well, but she also has periods of despair. She starts therapy and writes about those sessions.
But what I really loved what just what she considers a "diary." Many, many entries are short - often just a sentence. She recounts her dreams, writes quotes from books she's reading, gives interesting reports on the news or the weather, tells us the subject of the sermon in Church - much of this written in unapologetic, beautiful sentence fragments. And just the way she uses language! She describes the word "cup" - "fat, short and stumpy, and optimistic." When she's depressed she describes herself as "a sack of different sadnesses being hauled around by a skeleton." (Just the fact that it's "different sadnesses" instead of "sadness"!)
I was surprised to find she's still alive, because I can't imagine anyone letting people read this while she is still on earth. In the diaries she even worries about them being read after her death. The honesty is stunning.
It took me awhile to read this - it is long - but I absolutely reveled in every page of it.

A collection of the wonderful author Helen Garners diary entries ,a chance to get a look into her real life her inrtimate thoughts both dark and then funny, her divorce her friends and family her world her life a really interesting read.#NetGalley #knopf

Over on my booktube channel (Hannah's Books), I shared this book in my description of exciting books forthcoming in early March. Link to the particular discussion: https://youtu.be/O49TMDNluh0?si=NBGOkmof16bkktY5&t=620

These diary style entries chronicle the deterioration of Garner's marriage. It moves the reader through time, actions and feelings using an interesting style in balanced way, telling a very compelling story that invites connection, clearly communicating the complexities of her experience. The reader's takeaway is both empathetic and empowering.

I don't usually read memoirs, but this is not your usual memoir. HOW TO END A STORY is a compilation of twenty years of Helen Garner's private diaries. Every secret she shared with herself, never meaning to have them read by anyone else, is revealed as if they happened today. Garner is a well known, well loved author who found her inspirations in her life's journeys. Readers will now see the challenges and the celebrations as they happened and recognize them from their favorite Garner book. I would find it very hard to reveal 20 years of my life, warts and all, with anyone willing to pay the price of a book.....I really appreciate the courage Garner displays here.
This does not read like a fiction or even an edited nonfiction. We read it as she wrote it. I enjoyed every page.

In How To End A Story; by Helen Garner is a trilogy of her diaries starting with; The Yellow Notebook 1978-1987,, One Day I’ll Remember This 1987-1995, and the title diary and the last 1995-1998.. unlike most diaries these books aren’t written from day-to-day but our snippets of different things that happened from struggling being a single mother to living young and in France, letting her daughter go with her dad, her struggles on her writing at that time as you go from book to book you see how her riding and motherhood progress’s, to her budding romance with “V” and then the last book we see the end of that relationship. I found these events in her life were written honestly and I really enjoyed all three of the diaries. My favorite Takeaway from all three books was when she said the better the movie is the harder it is to review it because I also have that problem with reading great books and reviewing them. then again I identified with Miss Garner on many things such as motherhood and guilt empty nesting and being over someone who really needs to get over their self as well. she even discusses her drug use her broken friendships and just everything that happened in her life it seems she wrote it down in these books. I much rather read a book that goes from day today but I would be lying if I said I didn’t absolutely 100% enjoy these diaries because I did I just wish they were put in a more story type format but either way I still definitely absolutely recommend it and absolutely loved it.#NetGalley, #KnopfPantheonInVintage, #BlindReviewer, #MyHonestReview, #HelenGarner, #HowToEndAStory,

Helen Helen Helen. I guess I'm a Helen Garner fan, after all.             Normally, I am not a diary reader. It feels intrusive, I guess? Generally, because they are released after the writer is no longer with us. This is not the case with How to End a Story.

   Not only is this extremely intimate and vulnerable, but reading about the ups and downs of relationships, the torturous slow demise of one, it is also celebratory and revealing. We are along with Garner on ups and downs in her career and awards. The doubts that lingered even after successful milestones. Revealing in the aspect of the social attitudes of the times. When I say the times, it spans many years. It's a time capsule, from mentioning the disaster at #Chernobyl to the drowning of #JeffBuckley. 

   Honestly, this was a pleasure to read, and I think you could even start with this book if you've not experienced Garners magic before.

How to End a Story is a collection of Helen Garner's diaries. It feels strange to review someone's innermost thoughts and details of their disintegrating marriage. Emotions are laid bare, and the writing comes from a very vulnerable place. Helen Garner is a gifted writer even in her journals, and I feel fortunate to have fairly recently discovered her. Thanks to NetGalley and Pantheon for the ARC.

I loved this collection! I saw that Jamison had done the forward and was intrigued. I laughed, felt the raw emotions through silly thoughts and journaling bad times. The journal entries are pretty short but very insightful to what is going on at the time in Gartner’s life. It kind of reads like a twitter at times. I wish I took more time instead of inhaling it.