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unaverage_j0's review against another edition
emotional
funny
informative
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
3.25
jessrock's review against another edition
funny
informative
fast-paced
4.0
The description of this book made me expect it to be a collection of humorous personal essays, a type of book I almost always hate because the humor inevitably feels like it's trying too hard, with authors that exaggerate things to make themselves look bad in a wink-wink, we all know I'm exaggerating this for the laughs kind of way.
One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter does start out that way, with an awkward opening essay about her fear of flying, where she contrasts her many paranoias with the even-keeled nature of her boyfriend, whom she insists on calling "Hamhock" for the duration of the entire book. She discloses almost immediately that at the time the essay is set, she is just turning 24 and her boyfriend is more than a decade older. She's Indian and he's white, so alarm bells immediately started going off about the sort of white men who like to date significantly younger women they see as "exotic." He pops up now and again in other essays but never with enough detail to know if he deserved the cringe I felt when he was first introduced, but that first essay really didn't do a good job of setting the tone for me.
After that essay, though? The rest of the book gets a whole lot better. The overall humor in the essays is very dry, not usually pushing for a cheap laugh. She's at her best when she's writing about social injustices; she talks about shadism and how differently her light brown skin is perceived in Canada and in India, and she talks about the difficulties of being a woman whose body doesn't meet societal ideals in her homeland or in her parents' homeland either, and she talks about rape culture and getting into party scenes in college and learning how men use alcohol as an excuse to take advantage of women. I also really enjoyed most of her essays about her family, as she navigates being the Canadian-born daughter of Indian immigrants and the sometimes very different hopes they have for her.
There were some weak spots throughout the book; the essay about Twitter didn't feel like it fit with the rest of the book and didn't do anything for me, and I rarely enjoyed any of the essays that featured "Hamhock" since she seemed to base her relationship with him around trying to provoke him.
There's nothing groundbreaking in this book, but Koul has a really strong voice when she isn't trying too hard to be funny, and I liked this book a lot more than I expected to.
One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter does start out that way, with an awkward opening essay about her fear of flying, where she contrasts her many paranoias with the even-keeled nature of her boyfriend, whom she insists on calling "Hamhock" for the duration of the entire book. She discloses almost immediately that at the time the essay is set, she is just turning 24 and her boyfriend is more than a decade older. She's Indian and he's white, so alarm bells immediately started going off about the sort of white men who like to date significantly younger women they see as "exotic." He pops up now and again in other essays but never with enough detail to know if he deserved the cringe I felt when he was first introduced, but that first essay really didn't do a good job of setting the tone for me.
After that essay, though? The rest of the book gets a whole lot better. The overall humor in the essays is very dry, not usually pushing for a cheap laugh. She's at her best when she's writing about social injustices; she talks about shadism and how differently her light brown skin is perceived in Canada and in India, and she talks about the difficulties of being a woman whose body doesn't meet societal ideals in her homeland or in her parents' homeland either, and she talks about rape culture and getting into party scenes in college and learning how men use alcohol as an excuse to take advantage of women. I also really enjoyed most of her essays about her family, as she navigates being the Canadian-born daughter of Indian immigrants and the sometimes very different hopes they have for her.
There were some weak spots throughout the book; the essay about Twitter didn't feel like it fit with the rest of the book and didn't do anything for me, and I rarely enjoyed any of the essays that featured "Hamhock" since she seemed to base her relationship with him around trying to provoke him.
There's nothing groundbreaking in this book, but Koul has a really strong voice when she isn't trying too hard to be funny, and I liked this book a lot more than I expected to.
awebofstories's review against another edition
I felt like I was not the right audience for this book.
cassiealexandra's review against another edition
I just wasn’t connecting with the author’s sense of humor.
mollybonovskyanderson's review against another edition
3.0
This was so funny. Quick, but satisfying read.