Okay. This was not a book I could sit and read through. I skimmed, and then skimmed some more. I didn't DNF it, but I didn't really read every chapter either. The writing is very quirky and a bit hard to follow along. She writes about something and then jumps to something else without warning. There's no steady flow. She intermittently reflects on attempting to care for her ailing parents and often mentions her past writing accomplishments but doesn't connect those experiences to their value in "starting over" in art school. Nell Painter seems to be an accomplished historian and academic writer. I can definitely see the challenge of the left brain meeting the right brain when she decides to attend art school but don't feel her journey was expressed well in this book. Painter presented more as a privileged individual (which is interesting considering how often she recognized her challenges as a minority woman) who decides she wants to go back to school, in the middle of a prosperous career as an accomplished professor and writer, and is annoyed that it doesn't come easily. Her struggles are minimal and, honestly, expected for an academia moving into the creative, art world. I had a really hard time following her train of thought, as expressed in her writing but do feel I was able to get enough of a gist of the book by reading a sporadic chapter here and there.

Zero stars for me. I had high hopes for this book but was very disappointed.