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chelseamartinez's review
3.0
This chronicles a chunk of years in Austin (though Ben is on tour/out-of-town a lot in the book) that I was also there and drinking beers and going to random parties, although the beers and the randomness pale in comparison to his chronicled here. The native Texan kids I knew always reveled in all of that more than me (but duh, I was in grad school).
There are foods cartooned here I miss eating, though his favorite Mexican restaurants and pizza were not mine, and the music venues and dodgy movie theaters are they same but not the bands or the movies (but it does capture something very Austin-aughts about being a cinephile). This spurred me to google people I had forgotten about, who I am not Instagram-connected to, but was once Friendster- and Myspace- and Facebook- connected to; it really was a good time to meet people at parties and then not have to give them your phone number! There were times in Austin when I wish I could have cut loose a bit more, but probably not in this way (and I'm glad I was never hungover in the lab because that would be legit dangerous), and the overall arc of this book, ultimately wanting something more than chill hangs, makes me feel better about sticking to my reason for being there at all (*but also very self-satisfied that I wisely picked a fun place to live for grad school, not like, Boston).
There are foods cartooned here I miss eating, though his favorite Mexican restaurants and pizza were not mine, and the music venues and dodgy movie theaters are they same but not the bands or the movies (but it does capture something very Austin-aughts about being a cinephile). This spurred me to google people I had forgotten about, who I am not Instagram-connected to, but was once Friendster- and Myspace- and Facebook- connected to; it really was a good time to meet people at parties and then not have to give them your phone number! There were times in Austin when I wish I could have cut loose a bit more, but probably not in this way (and I'm glad I was never hungover in the lab because that would be legit dangerous), and the overall arc of this book, ultimately wanting something more than chill hangs, makes me feel better about sticking to my reason for being there at all (*but also very self-satisfied that I wisely picked a fun place to live for grad school, not like, Boston).
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