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laynemandros's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
Lauren, if you’re reading this, don’t 🫶🏻
“No Judgement” is a collections of essays that is, in fact, filled with judgement. I was completely unaware of Lauren’s background before picking this up (thanks @librofm ) on audio. She’s a literary critic and author of “Fake Accounts,” which I saw floating around when it released.
I think this might be the most pompous and pretentious collection I’ve ever read and part of me really feels like that was Lauren’s intention. She strikes me as too smart to be unaware that her overall tone and style of writing is, at times, a bit insufferable!
Some of the essays seemed tedious to me (her essay an auto fiction) while others were really relatable (her essay on goodreads and keyboard warriors on the internet, cancel culture, etc.) and then there was one where I felt so seen I was like hey girl? are we the same? Re her essay on her almost debilitating anxiety and TMJ.
After reading some reviews about this online I can tell that Lauren is pretty polarizing and I felt the same. Some essays I really enjoyed and others I was like girl simply what the fuck are you talking about. I also fear that I might be ~simply too stupid~ for some of this content. And that’s okay because I don’t want to spend my time parsing through whether or not auto fiction is less valid than a memoir because I ✨don’t care ✨
I will say, as a publicist, I do agree with Lauren’s criticism of perception of writers. I think that in order to publicize books authors have to dole out pieces of personal information and sell them to the public. Oh your main character has debilitating depression, the author must as well, now it’s an interview topic. I agree with her overall assertion that criticism is a behavior that’s yielding to the droves of “chronically online” folks that lack nuance who are driving the cancel culture movement. I think there’s a difference between holding people accountable and the “cancel culture” internet.
“No Judgement” is a collections of essays that is, in fact, filled with judgement. I was completely unaware of Lauren’s background before picking this up (thanks @librofm ) on audio. She’s a literary critic and author of “Fake Accounts,” which I saw floating around when it released.
I think this might be the most pompous and pretentious collection I’ve ever read and part of me really feels like that was Lauren’s intention. She strikes me as too smart to be unaware that her overall tone and style of writing is, at times, a bit insufferable!
Some of the essays seemed tedious to me (her essay an auto fiction) while others were really relatable (her essay on goodreads and keyboard warriors on the internet, cancel culture, etc.) and then there was one where I felt so seen I was like hey girl? are we the same? Re her essay on her almost debilitating anxiety and TMJ.
After reading some reviews about this online I can tell that Lauren is pretty polarizing and I felt the same. Some essays I really enjoyed and others I was like girl simply what the fuck are you talking about. I also fear that I might be ~simply too stupid~ for some of this content. And that’s okay because I don’t want to spend my time parsing through whether or not auto fiction is less valid than a memoir because I ✨don’t care ✨
I will say, as a publicist, I do agree with Lauren’s criticism of perception of writers. I think that in order to publicize books authors have to dole out pieces of personal information and sell them to the public. Oh your main character has debilitating depression, the author must as well, now it’s an interview topic. I agree with her overall assertion that criticism is a behavior that’s yielding to the droves of “chronically online” folks that lack nuance who are driving the cancel culture movement. I think there’s a difference between holding people accountable and the “cancel culture” internet.
sterlingisreading's review against another edition
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.75
Lauren Oyler has always held a unique interest for me. Whether she’s ripping Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror to shreds (a book I love, by a writer I respect) or going on the Goop cruise to write an article about it, her work is always fun to read. As much as I love Tolentino, I read Oyler’s criticism of her book with maniacal glee. She’s an interesting literary critic. She is unapologetic, her words have teeth. This book of essays covers topics that I think about a lot, like gossip, autofiction, spoilers, and the irritating existence of Brené Brown’s “groundbreaking” Ted Talk on vulnerability and the hollow, pseudo-therapeutic proliferation of the term that has followed in the years since. I don’t have any interest in Oyler’s novel, but I’m always excited to read her criticism, essays, and commentary.
melannrosenthal's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
druidinary's review against another edition
funny
informative
reflective
5.0
My most anticipated book of the year.
As a fellow Contrarian, Lauren Oyler is my favourite literary critic and so maybe I am biased here, but I really enjoyed all of the topics in this book and her takes on them. Very insightful, and funny.
As a fellow Contrarian, Lauren Oyler is my favourite literary critic and so maybe I am biased here, but I really enjoyed all of the topics in this book and her takes on them. Very insightful, and funny.
birdykinsreads's review against another edition
2.0
Acerbic essays with an off-putting tone only magnified when listening to the audiobook read by the author. She feels like the type of person who would corner you at a party and talk at you for hours, uninterested in anything but the sound of her own voice. I believe that she believes she’s the smartest person in the room. I fell asleep once listening to this, oops, and found myself tuning out a lot despite making an honest attempt to focus and give it a shot. We did not vibe.
In one of the essays she discusses review culture and Goodreads, (hiiiiiii) and uses the book American Dirt to illustrate how elitism and bad reviews in certain spaces didn’t translate to sales. Felt a bit egregious to discuss this book while completely ignoring the reason it received such backlash in the first place—the author misrepresented herself. She identified as white only until she started marketing this book and then mentioned a Puerto Rican grandmother when she realized it might be a problem. The book was called out for problematic storylines and stereotypical characters by Latinx authors and readers to rightly point out the problems with platforming and supporting a white author writing a book about Mexican migrants instead of choosing to support #ownvoices books with the same vigor and marketing budget. It was a big part of an important conversation and feels strange to talk about it in this capacity without any mention of that. It wasn’t elitism that was trying to discourage reading and platforming this book as much as it was marginalized voices expressing their discontent with the status quo, and actually it’s not a surprise at all that those issues would be ignored by most readers and do nothing to prevent it becoming a bestseller. I never read it for that reason.
This was towards the beginning of the book and was the moment I realized oooooh I’m not going to enjoy this one, nope nope nope! Especially when she writes with what feels like a very condescending air. I found the essays about review culture (minus the above) and auto-fiction interesting but not enough to balance out the tedious more personal ones about her life in Berlin, the movie Tár (haven’t seen it) and her anxiety. And I did not appreciate her opinions enough to make up for the general (for me) ick of her tone.
I’m sure there’s plenty of people who this collection might appeal to, but it was not for me. If you plan on reading it, you might want to avoid the audiobook.
In one of the essays she discusses review culture and Goodreads, (hiiiiiii) and uses the book American Dirt to illustrate how elitism and bad reviews in certain spaces didn’t translate to sales. Felt a bit egregious to discuss this book while completely ignoring the reason it received such backlash in the first place—the author misrepresented herself. She identified as white only until she started marketing this book and then mentioned a Puerto Rican grandmother when she realized it might be a problem. The book was called out for problematic storylines and stereotypical characters by Latinx authors and readers to rightly point out the problems with platforming and supporting a white author writing a book about Mexican migrants instead of choosing to support #ownvoices books with the same vigor and marketing budget. It was a big part of an important conversation and feels strange to talk about it in this capacity without any mention of that. It wasn’t elitism that was trying to discourage reading and platforming this book as much as it was marginalized voices expressing their discontent with the status quo, and actually it’s not a surprise at all that those issues would be ignored by most readers and do nothing to prevent it becoming a bestseller. I never read it for that reason.
This was towards the beginning of the book and was the moment I realized oooooh I’m not going to enjoy this one, nope nope nope! Especially when she writes with what feels like a very condescending air. I found the essays about review culture (minus the above) and auto-fiction interesting but not enough to balance out the tedious more personal ones about her life in Berlin, the movie Tár (haven’t seen it) and her anxiety. And I did not appreciate her opinions enough to make up for the general (for me) ick of her tone.
I’m sure there’s plenty of people who this collection might appeal to, but it was not for me. If you plan on reading it, you might want to avoid the audiobook.