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""If I could take what I've learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine was worthwhile. I'm already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you, but also my future glory in having stopped you from trying an expensive juice cleanse or thinking that it was your fault when the person you are dating suddenly backs away, intimidated by the clarity of your personal mission here on earth. No, I am not a sexpert, a psychologist or a dietician. I am not a mother of three or the owner of a successful hosiery franchise. But I am a girl with a keen interest in having it all, and what follows are hopeful dispatches from the frontlines of that struggle.""--… (more)
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*I'm not clear what kind of girl she is, but, admittedly, I did end up skimming many of the essays.
curricular connections; self esteem building exercises, life skills and therapeutic outlets. Understanding and working through personal struggles. Modern writing.
This is not a book for everyone and if you don't like Dunham, you'll probably hate it. I like that she's in her mid-20's and not sure where she goes from here, but she's excited about it. I like that she owns her past and realizes she's made mistakes, will make more, and hasn't learned all her lessons yet. She feels so REAL, and I think that's the biggest thing she's trying to convey. Watching someone embrace their flaws, not glorifying them, just recognizing they're part of being human, is refreshing.
But, alas, I found myself disliking this book for pretty much the same reasons why I dislike Dunham's HBO show Girls: she's incredibly
I'm sounding pretty harsh. I did enjoy the cute little illustrations throughout the book. I laughed at a few places, mostly during her aforementioned lists. Her final essay on a guide to running away for a 27 year old resonated a bit with me...but most of the time I just found myself rolling my eyes at what she had to say about topics such as sex, medical disorders, college life, and being an adult. I applaud Dunham for being able to turn her little bubble into a profitable form of self-reflection and confirmation, but it is unfortunately all too laughably immature and annoying for my taste. As a woman fast approaching my mid-20's, I'm appalled that someone who has had so much opportunity to experience life and the world and who has had so much success is stuck in her teens/early 20's. I just...ugh. The more I type, the more annoyed/angry I get. So I'll just leave it at that.
The aesthetically pleasing cover is incentive enough for me to keep this book...to the used bookstore it goes!
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the author, for a day’s entertainment while running errands, jogging, and driving.
Even though
Her experiences can range from painful mistakes, flaws, sarcastic, cynical, to smiles. I commend her for her boldness and bravery in writing her story, as she is not shy about airing her laundry for everyone- and plenty of gals could take a page out of her book, and learn from experience.
She is all over the board, which makes the audiobook fun, flitting from one thing to another as if she were with a group of friends, which was kind of refreshing.
Even if you are not in the age group, it is still an entertaining look for those who want to understand the complexities of this generation.
I was a huge fan of Carrie Bradshaw; however think Lena is more real and brutally honest which may make some more uncomfortable, but she says what she thinks so you have to admire her.
I absolutely loved her essays and great wit, she is very honest in regards to her flaws and phobias that we all had issues with. I really enjoyed this book and hope she'll find time to write more
On the one hand, I really do applaud Dunham's honesty. She truly embraces who she is--flaws
She is very open, also, about her struggles with anxiety and mental illness, which I appreciated. She discussed her experiences with therapy, and the ways in which her anxiety set her apart from her peers from a very early age.
While all of this is noteworthy and admirale, though, there are times when it also seems that Dunham is completely oblivious to the life of privilege that she has always led. To hear her talk, it seems that she is shocked to discover a world outside Manhattan. Anything that is not New York may as well not exist, and those of us who did not grow up in that magical world must not know what it is to truly live. Okay, so maybe that's a bit harsh--but her love of her hometown does seem to exceed typical hometown pride
There are also other moments in the book where she does not seem to realize that what she's describing is not anything like most people's typical experiences growing up. At least, they're nothing like mine. There's the much-maligned section about her vying for her sister's affection. Did I think that was super weird? Absolutely. Do I think she sexually molested her sister? No. I really just think she doesn't realize that that behavior is not the kind most children exhibit.
The autobiography was refreshing in the sense that it did make me realize that Lena herself is not ENTIRELY her character on Girls, although her experiences have definitely colored Hannah's. I was afraid that I would read "Not That Kind of Girl" and realize that Lena IS Hannah, which may have killed my faith in humanity.
I don't know that I learned much from Dunham's lessons, but I did enjoy her tale, even as it made me squirm at times and be VERY glad it wasn't my own.
"When you run away, the point is not to escape. You aren't actually trying to disappear. You just want to attract your mother. The great fantasy is that she's somewhere, watching, like the mother in Runaway Bunny who becomes the tree, then becomes the lake, then becomes the moon. Your mother becomes the mini backpack and becomes the loaf of bread and becomes the Devon Sawa poster above it where you go to sulk after it's all over. She knows. She knows."
Not That Kind of Girl is a flighty, off-the-cuff collection of short stories compiled to make a train-of-thought style memoir-ish collection. It is similar in structure to
Dunham is not trying to change the world with this book, and she is purposely being self-indulgent. This is a memoir. One of the top-most adjectives to define a memoir is “self-indulgence”. Her experiences and reflections are her own, and there really is very little room to identify or relate to her stories. I am no longer in my 20s, I was not raised in New York City by well-off and artsy parents, and my rural mid-western upbringing could not be farther from Dunham’s experiences. But I still enjoyed reading them, and I still appreciate her sharing them.
What I most enjoyed was when the author shares her experiences with OCD and dissociative disorder. She manages to tell stories about how she has dealt with these things in her life without asking for pity and also letting us know it’s okay to laugh about her experiences, because sometimes these things cause people to do really weird shit.
I’m not sure I’ve ever described a book with this term, but I feel like this would definitely be a good “beach read”. (I don’t go to the beach and beaches and oceans terrify me in general, so I just read it at work.) It’s short, engaging without being over-bearing, interesting and sometimes funny. The only complaint I have is that Dunham writes in a way that shows she has no idea of her privilege and she never once stops to consider that her upbringing/life isn’t an average one. At the same time, I’m not sure if this book is the right place to do that.
I think the first third is really tough going. The anecdotes are not that entertaining and there is just so much navel gazing - I found it really hard to get through. Around the halfway point I found it a quick read. The stories were good and I found myself
I read the whole thing, so it definitely wasn't all bad. I just had expected it to be zippier.
Cannot say I took a lot from the book, which is why I rated it 3/5.
There was virtually nothing about how
This one was a pretty big let down for me.
After finishing this I'm still not sure what kind of girl Lena Dunham isn't.
I also had to remind myself that Lena comes from the oversharing generation. There is a lot in this book that could potentially make you cringe, but if you know her work on Girls or anything else, it won't really come as a surprise. Overall, I found her writing style easy to read, and interesting, if not particularly amazing. I also enjoyed the chance to see any parallels between her life and Girls.
If this hadn't been an ebook I borrowed from the library, I definitely would have dog-eared some of the pages where she talks about how a woman deserves to be treated. There's certainly a lot to be learned from many of her pages, and I found a lot of what she said to be fascinating, if not disturbing, at times.
It was an easy, quick read and gave me some good insight into her life. (And I still want to be friends with her. And Lamby.)