Thanks Lowercasesee for the recommendation from last year’s CBR, even if this was absolutely something I heard about from multiple sources as being up my alley, I’m giving you the credit for having the pull quote I liked best from the book as well.
“…planning a wedding is the only period in a woman’s life where she is universally and unconditionally encouraged to conduct everything on her terms.”
Huyup. I was pretty damn easygoing as a bride (seriously, one of my bridesmaids was convinced we were gonna show up to the venue ten minutes before the start time to find stacked chairs and folded tables because I kept telling them “don’t worry about it”) but I remember hemming and hawing about the venue I wanted before having the epiphany that I was chill enough about literally everything else that I could in fact put my foot down – I could have WHAT I WANTED for no better reason that I wanted it. I don’t think I’ve felt that before or since.
Her writing on being a part of a reality TV show was interesting and the sort of thing I don’t think could have existed before now – an experience of teen years on a reality TV show contrasted with diary entries from the same period. Constructing a public version of yourself with a private version of yourself and finding how much time has borne out which is which.
I enjoyed this book, but Tolentino’s writing style tends toward the collegiate (see my above paragraph summarizing ONE section) – this was drier than I was expecting and felt so much like studying that I’m not sure an assessment of this book on first read is fair. There’s too much to unpack that I think I have to re-read the book to extract the full meaning of everything. I’m rating it 4 stars, rounded up from 3.5, because I think it’s better than my enjoyment gave it credit for.
