Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Boys with bowl cuts will not stray

I'm finishing up a memoir called I Don't Care About Your Band: Lessons Learned From Romantic Disappointments. It's light, easy, and a total waste of time.

The point of the book, as the title clearly states, is for the author, a master at failed love, to hilariously detail her knack for picking the wrong guys. A review said that she wrote in the tradition of Amy Sedaris, so naturally I flew to purchase a used copy immediately.

Here's the thing that I hate about this book- the author claims to have this really intense desire to fall in love, but she dismisses all the wrong people. She'll go out of her way to explain why she kept around a guy who treated her terribly, but axes others based on their childlike enthusiasm, and another for wearing bad jeans. (She's clearly not from the Midwest, where getting your boyfriend to buy a proper pair of jeans that cost more than $24.99 is the clearest sign that you're in a serious relationship.) I've been reading for 235 pages, and there seems to be no end to her ill-informed selection process. I know it's impossible to understand another person's relationship requirements, but this is ridiculous.

I hope that the book ends with an epiphany that guys in bad jeans can someday be guys in good jeans, or that guys who are obnoxiously enthusiastic are more likely to love you on your worst days, but I'm not sure it would really fit in with the tone.

As I hate ending on a negative note, I will say that I'm slightly inspired by the author's optimism in finding love- she's dated some truly awful people.

4 comments:

KC said...

Did you read Diablo Cody's horrible memoir, Candy Girl? The whole time I was reading that book and Diablo was saying stuff like, "I didn't know why I was stripping," I kept yelling at it: "BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO PUT IT IN A MEMOIR." Maybe this person made these terrible decisions because she too wanted to write about it?

Gina Marie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gina Marie said...

Exactly, KC. She is a comedy writer, so that was at the back of my mind.

So, the popularity of memoirs over fiction is causing people to make terrible life choices in the hopes that they'll be published? Does this make Diablo and this Julie Klausner chick any better than the cast of Jersey Shore??

Shannon Beth said...

Hooray! I can cross one book off of my "maybe to read in the future list."

Thanks for your totally honest opinion.

But hey, at least books like that can make us feel better about our own writing skills. Even if we only write blog entries!