My experience with Aziz Ansari prior to getting this audiobook was as follows. Playing exuberant, outgoing and quite exasperating pop culture and fashion obsessive Tom Haverford on Parks and Recreation, then more recently in Master of None as struggling New York actor Dev, who while quite different from Tom, frequently exasperated me nonetheless with his constant whining and inability to accept how good he had it, being really very privileged even as a minority actor. As a result, I wasn’t really all that interested in Modern Romance, believing it to be yet another celebrity autobiography for a comedian I wasn’t all that sure I liked that much or wanted to find out more about. After some very favourable reviews by fellow Cannonballers, I realised that this wasn’t actually the book I believed it to be and wondered if I should give it a try. It was the recommendation of my book twin and kindred spirit Narfna, which really changed my mind (as it so often it nowadays) and made me rush to Audible to get my own copy.
Modern Romance, while it also contains a lot of humour and some insight into Aziz Ansari’s own life is actually more of a sociological study into the ways in which our ideas of romance, courtship, dating, relationships and marriage has changed in the last couple of generations.
Full review on my blog.
