Reviews round-up
Notes to John
by Joan Didion
3 of 8 critics positive
10 reviews: 3 positives, 3 mixed, 2 pans; 2 not stating a verdict in public
What the critics said
“a guilty pleasure”
Notes to John by Joan Didion: Dispatches from the therapist’s chair are a guilty pleasure
“It’s revealing, raw and haunting”
Should Joan Didion’s therapy notes to her husband about their daughter have been published?
“The strangest and saddest book you will read all year”
Inside the mind of Joan Didion: The strangest and saddest book you will read all year
“intrusive, sometimes interesting but mostly wearying”
In Notes to John, Joan Didion’s private psychiatric notes are intrusive, sometimes interesting but mostly wearying
“I wish her the privacy she relished”
Review: Joan Didion's 'Notes to John' may be a gift. And yet, I wish her the privacy she relished
“undeniably stylish, haunting and instructive. But it’s morally unsettling too”
Should Joan Didion’s psychiatric notes really be published like this?
“no one comes out of it well”
Notes to John by Joan Didion review – an invasion of privacy
“left me feeling grubby”
Joan Didion’s posthumous book left me feeling grubby
Andrew O’Hagan · Air-Conditioned Unease: Joan Didion on the Couch
Peeking Into Joan Didion’s Years of Psychological Thinking (Published 2025)
Verdicts are read from each outlet's own headline and summary; quotes are their words, credited and linked. Where a paywalled summary does not give the critic's view, we say so rather than guess. How it works.
