The twenty-eight essays included in this book are inspired by the famous Joan Didion essay of the same name. Established and emerging writers share their love affair with New York, initially drawn by its manic energy and frenzied pace. As years pass, they also share the grief that blindsided them, when the city loses its magic and the pressures of New York’s frenetic life wear thin on even the most resilient. After achieving success in their writing careers, the cons of living in New York outwei...

Every essay:I wanted to come to New York because it seemed cool, and where I'm from people wouldn't know cool if it froze their nuts! Then I did a bunch of stuff and got fed up and moved upstate because you get tired y'know? If only my younger self could see me! No, jk, they'd be proud, because this was the plan all along. And I am proud! And everyone I know is proud of me too! Including my younger self! Also, I still keep my metrocard in my wallet to remind me who I am: A person proud to have h...

Well... full disclosure...I edited this book. And conceived of it in general. And wrote the intro, an essay, and more. So, I'm not exactly impartial.

I started reading this book because, as a native New Yorker desperate to leave New York, I was curious to read about other perspectives. In that sense, this essay collection was a bit of a disappointment, because most of the essays were from transplants rather than natives, and even the natives shared nothing in common with my experience: they were all white or somewhat wealthy, and all from Manhattan. More generally speaking, I was disappointed that most of the contributors to this book are mid...

Terrible book. I couldn't finish it, because it was like being trapped in a summer internship at Seventeen Magazine. Let me explain. All the contributors are women for some odd reason, and this is the effect: the contributors all "love" and "hate" New York in the same ditzy emotional ways they love and hate the men (mostly losers) who seem to govern their choices over where to live. Look, it's just a city. No more, no less. Everyone in this book needs to get over themselves, and go live in Dubuq...

This is a rough book to read, if you've recently hit the 5 years in New York mark and are contemplating an exit, if only to the 'burbs. It's a nostalgia ride, nostalgia for a place this is still in the present time, feeling the eventual loss before it's even happened.But before I slip into an emotional reverie about living in or out of New York City, I want to comment on the actual collection of essays. Reading it felt a bit like an anthology version of the movie Groundhog Day , starting each e...

Oh this book!I picked it up in an independent book store in Brooklyn, the day before I too was leaving New York to head back home. It was only a weekend, but I felt the pain (and pangs!) described in this book accurately - as well as the fairy-tale love stories also described so wonderfully.If you hate New York (1. i don't understand you) you will hate this book. But if you dream of it, with complexity, or if you live there, also with complexity, you will find great meaning in it. And of course,...

Just like leaving New York, this book is heartbreaking and joyous. Goodbye to All That is an ode to the greatest City and the greatest relief to write that last rent check.

My first-hand experience with New York City took place in August 1971 as a small boy on holiday to visit relatives there. In the intervening years, I’ve visited New York 4 other times, seeing it from a variety of angles and perspectives. But never with a desire to live there. “Too big, too crazy”, I’d always say to myself. Notwithstanding that, I have had at times an overweening curiosity as to why other people (outsiders to the Big Apple, like me) have fallen so deeply, passionately IN LOVE wit...

Of my friends who have left New York, most of them have left for the sort of torn, bittersweet reasons that most of the writers in this anthology have left for--more space is available elsewhere, more time, exhausted by the embarrassing rents, going to graduate school, having grown up here and wearied of it, realizing that the promise of a new self is just an inside job and you don't have to stay here to pull it off (and in some cases have to move on in order to)--and, by and large, are not dick...

Whiney, entitled late 20 something women who thought going to NY would transform them into interesting, non whiney, entitled jerks. Most moved away due to having kids and succumbing to a life of boredom in the suburbs or not being able to accept the reality of needing a real job. One writer was actually a NYC native, and she was different only in the way that she whined about NY and how it used to be cool, man. Maybe 2 essays in this book were worthwhile. TL;DR: What a pile of piss.

I likely wasn't the right audience for this book, as I have recently moved to New York City in my early 20s, and I feel like I would have enjoyed Goodbye To All That more if I had already lived and left NYC myself too.That being said...I found it extremely difficult to get through this book. Each essay was written by a woman in the writing industry who had financially struggled living in the city for years before leaving for somewhere else, which after reading 30 of these essays felt redundant a...

If you've ever daydreamed about escaping the city you love, wondered how people manage to pursue creative careers in NYC, or returned from a weekend away with more reluctance than relief, read this book. The all-too-relatable topic is why I picked it up, but it turns out this is also a lovingly curated collection of some of the best contemporary writers and essayists who have—at some point—passed through the five boroughs. I read it cover to cover, and if there were a sequel, I'd read that too.

A magnificent anthology! I started with Botton's follow-up anthology, Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York, which was strong, and had some highly memorable essays, but definitely some misses. In her first collection, Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York there wasn't a bad one in the bunch. I absolutely loved the many stories of young, aspiring writers making their way to NYC in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. Each met a slightly diff...