A review by gadicohen93
My Misspent Youth: Essays by Meghan Daum

5.0

I don't know why I identified with Daum. Maybe I'm also obsessed with the trappings of life rather than its substance. I, too, pick my dreams based on a material understanding of things -- I strive for a life of hardwood floors, intellectual conversations -- a life of doing things for the sake of living. I related to all of her essays, even the snarky, supercilious ones -- especially those. It's too bad that so many of GR reviewers vilified the snobbishness in the writing -- because that's what I thought made Daum so strong. She swung into every essay with her own predetermined set of opinions and attitudes and used them to transport the reader into her life, to see things from her viewpoint. And even then, she even disclaims about her own snobbishness -- she was, in fact, one of those Music Is My Bag kids, she was one of those losers who fall in love with an Internet persona, she was one of those people buried in thousands of dollars of debt. This entire collection exclaims, "I'm imperfect -- in fact, like the world around me, I'm pretty shitty."

It's original and honest in a way not many books are. The style is smooth, fresh, cutting in a way that made me snigger. Daum's one of those writers who gets to the heart of her subjects -- or at least to the heart of her feelings on the subject -- which is something commendable. When discussing the family/colony of polyamorous lovers, she's not dismissive of their polyamory -- she's dismissive of how almost sheltered their lives are.