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daceydacey 's review for:
Becoming Duchess Goldblatt
by Duchess Goldblatt
I really struggled to finish this and I did not enjoy it. I listened to the audiobook and had it jacked up to 2x so I could get through it as fast as possible (I should have just left it unfinished, but a part of me kept thinking: this can't be it?)
Why is there an entire transcript between the author and Lyle Lovett? A few conversations might have made sense - like a "look we built a real friendship from this fake internet personality I created!" but it is literally a transcript (read by Lyle Lovett in the audiobook) and it is incredibly self indulgent.
I like Duchess Goldblatt. I like the concept of a fake twitter account meant to uplift and connect people. And I like the idea that a woman going through a hard time created this as a distraction from her own difficult life and as a way to connect with others. But there is no Duchess Goldblatt in this book aside from quotes pulled directly from twitter. It is all the author. And instead of following her initial instincts and channelling her unhappiness into a positive result, the author uses this book to highlight her own flaws, personal failings, and continuous struggles. It's hard to read.
It's even harder when the book is full of the worst kind of humble brags. "I'm not competitive but I can finish my work faster than anyone else"... "I'm a guys girl"... sigh.
And reading it I can understand why she struggles to maintain real friendships. She admits that she doesn't pay attention or try to retain information about the real people around her. She doesn't know what her best friend does for a living (?!). She says her husbands family abandoned her after the divorce, which sounds impossibly hard, but I do think therapy would do wonders in helping the author figure out why these relationships also failed and a constructive way to reach out to the people from her past.
Overall Duchess is a thoughtful, fun, funny, and good friend who is capable of maintaining relationships (albeit online). There is a lot the author could learn from the Duchess.
Why is there an entire transcript between the author and Lyle Lovett? A few conversations might have made sense - like a "look we built a real friendship from this fake internet personality I created!" but it is literally a transcript (read by Lyle Lovett in the audiobook) and it is incredibly self indulgent.
I like Duchess Goldblatt. I like the concept of a fake twitter account meant to uplift and connect people. And I like the idea that a woman going through a hard time created this as a distraction from her own difficult life and as a way to connect with others. But there is no Duchess Goldblatt in this book aside from quotes pulled directly from twitter. It is all the author. And instead of following her initial instincts and channelling her unhappiness into a positive result, the author uses this book to highlight her own flaws, personal failings, and continuous struggles. It's hard to read.
It's even harder when the book is full of the worst kind of humble brags. "I'm not competitive but I can finish my work faster than anyone else"... "I'm a guys girl"... sigh.
And reading it I can understand why she struggles to maintain real friendships. She admits that she doesn't pay attention or try to retain information about the real people around her. She doesn't know what her best friend does for a living (?!). She says her husbands family abandoned her after the divorce, which sounds impossibly hard, but I do think therapy would do wonders in helping the author figure out why these relationships also failed and a constructive way to reach out to the people from her past.
Overall Duchess is a thoughtful, fun, funny, and good friend who is capable of maintaining relationships (albeit online). There is a lot the author could learn from the Duchess.