Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned" is a 2014 memoir written by Lena Dunham. The book, a collection of autobiographical essays, lists, and emails, was released in hardcover by Random House on September 30, 2014, and in paperback on October 20, 2015.
If you liked Girls, this is definitely a book for you. But even if you didn't - Dunham is authentic, funny and endearing, and her writing is - for lack of a better word - applicable - to any girl, woman, or human trying to make his way in the world.
2 1/2 stars
Saw this at the library and thought "why not?" It was all right. Worth a few chuckles.
But actually, I'm from an older generation and kind of don't really get this younger one. But it's easy mindless reading if you are looking for something light.
And lol, I saw the picture on the back of the hard cover and thought the book was going to be about a semi-frumpy, gutsy, career girl in a man's world from the late 60s, wtf? Judging a book by the back cover?
I watched the original Danish version of The Bridge, not the American remake. Likewise Forbrydelsen. Well, this book is the original for Girls. (Unless it's the original for Tiny Furniture which was the original for Girls.) I like Girls and all, but this is better. It doesn't have to take that trip into fiction that turns out to be more of a loss than a gain in this case. Beautifully written and it actually happened.
This books is mostly like a count-down of things that Dunham's done or not done, things she cries about and decries; her style of writing is very western, in the sense that she's a privileged person who has her neuroses, much like a modern-day Woody Allen in her way.
Basically, any paragraph from this book works as a reference to how Dunham writes. For example:
You wouldn’t know it to see me at a party. In a crowd I am recklessly cheerful, dressed to the nines in thrift-shop gowns and press-on fingernails, fighting the sleepiness that comes from the 350 milligrams of medication I take every night. I dance the hardest, laugh the hardest at my own jokes, and make casual reference to my vagina, like it’s a car or a chest of drawers. I got mono last year, but it never really went away.
A line like the following …
This books is mostly like a count-down of things that Dunham's done or not done, things she cries about and decries; her style of writing is very western, in the sense that she's a privileged person who has her neuroses, much like a modern-day Woody Allen in her way.
Basically, any paragraph from this book works as a reference to how Dunham writes. For example:
You wouldn’t know it to see me at a party. In a crowd I am recklessly cheerful, dressed to the nines in thrift-shop gowns and press-on fingernails, fighting the sleepiness that comes from the 350 milligrams of medication I take every night. I dance the hardest, laugh the hardest at my own jokes, and make casual reference to my vagina, like it’s a car or a chest of drawers. I got mono last year, but it never really went away.
He had the severe face and impossibly great hair of Alain Delon but said “wicked” more than most French New Wave actors.
There was a particularly raucous party in the loft above the video store. I wore Audrey’s fancy wrap dress, and we drank two beers each before we left and split a Xanax she still had from a flight to Boca with her grandma. It hit me hard and fast, and by the time we showed up I was possessed by a party spirit quite alien to me. Audrey, on the other hand, became dizzy and after much deliberation went home, making me promise to treat her wrap dress with the proper respect. I missed her keenly for a moment, then snorted a small amount of cocaine off a key, before kissing a freshman and dancing into the bathroom line, where I showed people how easily Audrey’s wrap dress opened and explained how “bogus” the creative writing department was.
And my mother always knew that, hence her Nikon raised high and pointed right into the mirror. She sensed that by documenting her own body, she was preserving her history. Beautifully. Nakedly. Imperfectly. Her private experiment made way for my public one. Another frequently asked question is how I am “brave” enough to reveal my body on-screen. The subtext there is definitely how am I brave enough to reveal my imperfect body, since I doubt Blake Lively would be subject to the same line of inquiry. I am forced to engage in regular conversation about my body with strangers, such as the drunken frat boy on MacDougal Street who shouted, “Your tits look like my sister’s!” My answer is: It’s not brave to do something that doesn’t scare you. I’d be brave to skydive. To visit a leper colony. To argue a case in the United States Supreme Court or to go to a CrossFit gym. Performing in sex scenes that I direct, exposing a flash of my weird puffy nipple, those things don’t fall into my zone of terror. A few years ago, after I screened Tiny Furniture for the first time, I was standing outside the theater in Austin when a teenage boy approached me. He was tiny. Really tiny. The kind of tiny that, as a teenage boy, must be painful. He looked like a Persian cat’s toy mouse. “Excuse me,” he said shyly. “I just wanted you to know how much it meant to me to see you show your body in that way. It made me feel so much better about myself.” The first result of this was that I pictured him naked, which was stressful. The second was extreme gratitude: for his generosity in sharing, for my ability to have any impact on the body image of this obviously cool and open young gentleman (after all, he was seeing a fringe women’s-interest film on a school night). “Thank you so much.” I beamed. “You’re really hot.”
We often spent Isabel’s lunch break in Pecan, a local coffee bar where we disturbed yuppies on laptops with our incessant—and filthy—chatter. “I can’t find a goddamn fucking job and I’m too fat to be a stripper,” I said as I polished off a stale croissant.
This books is mostly like a count-down of things that Dunham's done or not done, things she cries about and decries; her style of writing is very western, in the sense that she's a privileged person who has her neuroses, much like a modern-day Woody Allen in her way.
Basically, any paragraph from this book works as a reference to how Dunham writes. For example:
You wouldnât know it to see me at a party. In a crowd I am recklessly cheerful, dressed to the nines in thrift-shop gowns and press-on fingernails, fighting the sleepiness that comes from the 350 milligrams of medication I take every night. I dance the hardest, laugh the hardest at my own jokes, and make casual reference to my vagina, like itâs a car or a chest of drawers. I got mono last year, but it never really went away.
A line like the following …
This books is mostly like a count-down of things that Dunham's done or not done, things she cries about and decries; her style of writing is very western, in the sense that she's a privileged person who has her neuroses, much like a modern-day Woody Allen in her way.
Basically, any paragraph from this book works as a reference to how Dunham writes. For example:
You wouldnât know it to see me at a party. In a crowd I am recklessly cheerful, dressed to the nines in thrift-shop gowns and press-on fingernails, fighting the sleepiness that comes from the 350 milligrams of medication I take every night. I dance the hardest, laugh the hardest at my own jokes, and make casual reference to my vagina, like itâs a car or a chest of drawers. I got mono last year, but it never really went away.
He had the severe face and impossibly great hair of Alain Delon but said âwickedâ more than most French New Wave actors.
There was a particularly raucous party in the loft above the video store. I wore Audreyâs fancy wrap dress, and we drank two beers each before we left and split a Xanax she still had from a flight to Boca with her grandma. It hit me hard and fast, and by the time we showed up I was possessed by a party spirit quite alien to me. Audrey, on the other hand, became dizzy and after much deliberation went home, making me promise to treat her wrap dress with the proper respect. I missed her keenly for a moment, then snorted a small amount of cocaine off a key, before kissing a freshman and dancing into the bathroom line, where I showed people how easily Audreyâs wrap dress opened and explained how âbogusâ the creative writing department was.
And my mother always knew that, hence her Nikon raised high and pointed right into the mirror. She sensed that by documenting her own body, she was preserving her history. Beautifully. Nakedly. Imperfectly. Her private experiment made way for my public one. Another frequently asked question is how I am âbraveâ enough to reveal my body on-screen. The subtext there is definitely how am I brave enough to reveal my imperfect body, since I doubt Blake Lively would be subject to the same line of inquiry. I am forced to engage in regular conversation about my body with strangers, such as the drunken frat boy on MacDougal Street who shouted, âYour tits look like my sisterâs!â My answer is: Itâs not brave to do something that doesnât scare you. Iâd be brave to skydive. To visit a leper colony. To argue a case in the United States Supreme Court or to go to a CrossFit gym. Performing in sex scenes that I direct, exposing a flash of my weird puffy nipple, those things donât fall into my zone of terror. A few years ago, after I screened Tiny Furniture for the first time, I was standing outside the theater in Austin when a teenage boy approached me. He was tiny. Really tiny. The kind of tiny that, as a teenage boy, must be painful. He looked like a Persian catâs toy mouse. âExcuse me,â he said shyly. âI just wanted you to know how much it meant to me to see you show your body in that way. It made me feel so much better about myself.â The first result of this was that I pictured him naked, which was stressful. The second was extreme gratitude: for his generosity in sharing, for my ability to have any impact on the body image of this obviously cool and open young gentleman (after all, he was seeing a fringe womenâs-interest film on a school night). âThank you so much.â I beamed. âYouâre really hot.â
We often spent Isabelâs lunch break in Pecan, a local coffee bar where we disturbed yuppies on laptops with our incessantâand filthyâchatter. âI canât find a goddamn fucking job and Iâm too fat to be a stripper,â I said as I polished off a stale croissant.
This books is mostly like a count-down of things that Dunham's done or not done, things she cries about and decries; her style of writing is very western, in the sense that she's a privileged person who has her neuroses, much like a modern-day Woody Allen in her way.
Basically, any paragraph from this book works as a reference to how Dunham writes. For example:
You wouldn’t know it to see me at a party. In a crowd I am recklessly cheerful, dressed to the nines in thrift-shop gowns and press-on fingernails, fighting the sleepiness that comes from the 350 milligrams of medication I take every night. I dance the hardest, laugh the hardest at my own jokes, and make casual reference to my vagina, like it’s a car or a chest of drawers. I got mono last year, but it never really went away.
A line like the following …
This books is mostly like a count-down of things that Dunham's done or not done, things she cries about and decries; her style of writing is very western, in the sense that she's a privileged person who has her neuroses, much like a modern-day Woody Allen in her way.
Basically, any paragraph from this book works as a reference to how Dunham writes. For example:
You wouldn’t know it to see me at a party. In a crowd I am recklessly cheerful, dressed to the nines in thrift-shop gowns and press-on fingernails, fighting the sleepiness that comes from the 350 milligrams of medication I take every night. I dance the hardest, laugh the hardest at my own jokes, and make casual reference to my vagina, like it’s a car or a chest of drawers. I got mono last year, but it never really went away.
He had the severe face and impossibly great hair of Alain Delon but said “wicked” more than most French New Wave actors.
There was a particularly raucous party in the loft above the video store. I wore Audrey’s fancy wrap dress, and we drank two beers each before we left and split a Xanax she still had from a flight to Boca with her grandma. It hit me hard and fast, and by the time we showed up I was possessed by a party spirit quite alien to me. Audrey, on the other hand, became dizzy and after much deliberation went home, making me promise to treat her wrap dress with the proper respect. I missed her keenly for a moment, then snorted a small amount of cocaine off a key, before kissing a freshman and dancing into the bathroom line, where I showed people how easily Audrey’s wrap dress opened and explained how “bogus” the creative writing department was.
And my mother always knew that, hence her Nikon raised high and pointed right into the mirror. She sensed that by documenting her own body, she was preserving her history. Beautifully. Nakedly. Imperfectly. Her private experiment made way for my public one. Another frequently asked question is how I am “brave” enough to reveal my body on-screen. The subtext there is definitely how am I brave enough to reveal my imperfect body, since I doubt Blake Lively would be subject to the same line of inquiry. I am forced to engage in regular conversation about my body with strangers, such as the drunken frat boy on MacDougal Street who shouted, “Your tits look like my sister’s!” My answer is: It’s not brave to do something that doesn’t scare you. I’d be brave to skydive. To visit a leper colony. To argue a case in the United States Supreme Court or to go to a CrossFit gym. Performing in sex scenes that I direct, exposing a flash of my weird puffy nipple, those things don’t fall into my zone of terror. A few years ago, after I screened Tiny Furniture for the first time, I was standing outside the theater in Austin when a teenage boy approached me. He was tiny. Really tiny. The kind of tiny that, as a teenage boy, must be painful. He looked like a Persian cat’s toy mouse. “Excuse me,” he said shyly. “I just wanted you to know how much it meant to me to see you show your body in that way. It made me feel so much better about myself.” The first result of this was that I pictured him naked, which was stressful. The second was extreme gratitude: for his generosity in sharing, for my ability to have any impact on the body image of this obviously cool and open young gentleman (after all, he was seeing a fringe women’s-interest film on a school night). “Thank you so much.” I beamed. “You’re really hot.”
We often spent Isabel’s lunch break in Pecan, a local coffee bar where we disturbed yuppies on laptops with our incessant—and filthy—chatter. “I can’t find a goddamn fucking job and I’m too fat to be a stripper,” I said as I polished off a stale croissant.
