George D

As a male comedian in his mid 30's whose attended the Edinburgh Fringe for almost a decade, whose career feels stalled, and is struggling with the most difficult breakup of his life, Dolly Alderton bringing out a book about a male comedian in his mid 30's whose attended the Edinburgh Fringe for almost a decade, whose career feels stalled, and is struggling with the most difficult breakup of his life, feels like the universe has given up on sending me subtle hints.

It's impossible to be objective about a book that has you saying things like “That's not what I did!”

But I'll try.

The book is funny with some good characters, you know exactly where the stories going but it's still fun getting there. Between both Andy and Jen's points of view, everyone whose gone through a breakup will be able to relate to something. Like technically, I was Jen (though also technically the exact opposite of Jen - a relationship confirmed all her opinions, a breakup made me sort out what I didn't know).

Dolly tries her best to be empathetic with the male experience, you can tell she's gone out of her way to do her research but, just like the standup comedy elements, it's very much written by someone on the outside looking in. While the comedian elements mostly work, the male emotional elements felt like cliches started creeping in.

The most glaring example of this is the way she describes the male friendship group dynamics after the breakup, which feel like the book was written in 1987. Sure in real life the group will go get drunk, that's a given, but they will definitely also have stories to share about the emotional difficulty of breakups, especially a group of guys in their mid 30's. You're going to have at least one guy wanting to talk about it too much, if anything.

What is lacking in the Andy POV narrative is actually taken too far in the other direction when Dolly writes from Jens perspective. I think Dolly made the mistake of being unable to separate herself from her character, she couldn't handle making Jen “the bad guy” or unaware in any way, and the point she was making suffered for it. From a narrative standpoint the choice Jen made should've been starker, like she was giving up something beautiful or betraying someone who didn't deserve it for the sake of what she really wanted, that way the choice has weight. As it stands its still nice to see this idea of being happy alone talked about, but the choice isn't exactly hard when it's not even a real relationship.

“You should choose to be happy alone rather than stay with a selfish whinger who slags off your entire family and doesn't support you emotionally, financially, or mentally” isn't quite the groundbreaking point it's made out to be.

Having said all that, the book helped me realise I've been floating in a limbo of impossible hopes for way too long, so whatever, 5 stars.

Biggest takeaway: Jane Austen is not a fan of children.

This is basically a rough draft of Pride and Prejudice. Inferior in most ways but can see how it would've been popular at release.

Found it weirdly judgemental, like Jane Austen hadn't yet learned to add nuance to her judgements, characters motives and actions are spelled out rather than shown.

Elinor is the one of the most fleshed out one dimensional character I've ever read. She's perfect and her only issues are dealing with a world that isn't ready for her perfection.

Loved every passage about a bachelor over 35 being tragically, desperately, over the hill.

I'm surprised to say this is the strongest so far in the Ender's series. It's a little more philosophical than the others but in a way that suits what's happening on the page plus it also includes a fantastically realistic anti-heroes journey I didn't expect.

I'm really not sure about the whole young Peter and Val surprise, it felt like it came out of nowhere purely for the purpose of sequels

Considering who wrote this, it's fascinating to see the issues of religious fundamentalism discussed in such detail.

This book annoyed the hell out of me. Ray's personal story is really interesting, would've enjoyed more of that, but once he gets to his principles it starts feeling like a snake oil salesman who genuinely believes his elixir works.

It's interesting as a character study. Here's a guy who can't accept he's just another genius investor with the right level of tenacity and timing to make it big. He has to imagine he has invented some brilliant new philosophy to teach as well. The fact is, he's not saying anything wrong, its great and simple sounding fluff you can enjoy at that level and not dig into at all. Think of it as the Ayn Rand school of philosophy.

Couldn't make it through the Principles section before giving up.

This is crack for any history fan. A true masterpiece of fictional worldbuilding.

Although definitely noticed this time that possibly the most old fashioned British influence over this whole mythos is the complete avoidance of anything overtly sexual in Tolkiens stories. When you compare his myths to their obvious forebear, the Greek Gods, you realise how much sex has been left out.

This isn't in itself a bad thing, but you'd be hardpressed to find any genuine historical myth from around the world that so thoroughly ignored one of the biggest features of human nature.