Observation on Memoirs

In a way I can see myself in both of these memoirs because they both relate certain interactions that almost everyone has experienced.  In the "Growing Up in Therapy" I relate to her feeling of wanting, "to feel better", because in reality everyone wants to just feel normal and like they fit in (Dunham).  I have struggled with mental road block as she has and I understand her feelings about therapy because I have been there myself.  In "Cousins" I can also relate to the experience the writer shared about the dinner she had, "It was one of those somewhat awkward dinners. Seeing someone that you haven't seen in so long, but feeling compelled to pull a conversation out of thin air as if not a day had gone by.", which I know most have felt for themselves as well (Cousins).  In this post I find that the author relates their experience with a kind of similar emotion that helps to draw the reader in.

However, they both approach their writer in different ways, Dunham writes like she is showing you and Cousins writes like they are telling you.  Dunham chooses to show her experience through her own eyes and thoughts, which she uses to help visualize the situation from her point of view. While Cousins writes as though she is telling you her experience by describing what happened and giving anecdotes for her story.  Both of these give detail, but I would have liked more detail in Cousins as I related better to the immersive detail of Dunham's story.

Even though each writing has its own style the sense of truth and honestly is felt though both of these stories.  In each they work had to help relate the reader to their situation, which helps to invoke a trust in the telling of the story.