The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan

Book of the Week: 13 January 2019

In 2012 Marina Keegan wrote a piece for a special edition of Yale News. She was 22 and it was the eve of her graduation from Yale. The article, which was called ‘The Opposite of Loneliness’, reflects on what it is like to be leaving university and facing a future full of possibilities. Tragically, Marina died in a car crash five days after graduating and was never to explore her future of possibilities. Her article subsequently went viral online and her professor at Yale, with the cooperation of her parents, gathered together her writings for this book. It is a mixture of non-fiction and stories, from musings on how her 1990 Toyota Camry represented a chunk of her life, to undergraduate love stories and a story about people trapped in a submarine. Above all, it is a book about young people facing all the excitement and upheaval of the future whilst reflecting on the past. It would be a meaningful read in your final term of Year 13 before you leave school and start a whole new life.