Scan barcode
A review by marjen
So Here's the Thing . . .: Notes on Growing Up, Getting Older, and Trusting Your Gut by Alyssa Mastromonaco
3.0
I can't really tell who the audience for this book is. Some of the life advice Alyssa offers (always carry tampons with you, only gossip with people you trust) seems fundamental enough to be aimed at girls in their teenage years, but then the references to 80s/90s pop culture and jam bands and hard rock make me feel like it's for an older crowd. I don't know if the book really works for either audience.
A lot of things felt like filler, like lists of Alyssa's favorite songs and what she keeps in her medicine cabinet. The inclusion of a list written by someone who used to work for her about the passive-aggressive things Alyssa used to say ("it's fine", "whatever") and their translations ("It's not fine", "I'll do it myself") seemed completely out of place and didn't seem to serve a larger narrative purpose or theme. A lot of the pieces didn't have a real structure, and kind of meandered to a conclusion. The book also ends really abruptly.
There were a couple essays I liked, and I especially appreciated her frank discussion on living with IBS, because we still have such a taboo around talking about these kinds of bodily functions. And as a fellow cat person, I enjoyed hearing about all her cats and how they had entered and changed her life. Her reflections on why she doesn't plan on having kids, and the bittersweetness of seeing her friends have children, felt real and insightful and like a perspective we don't hear from all that often.
Overall, this was fine, with some special standout moments. But there's no central message or theme running throughout the essays, and a lot of content fell flat for me. I do appreciate her humor and voice, but I think I prefer it in the context of podcasts and interviews.
A lot of things felt like filler, like lists of Alyssa's favorite songs and what she keeps in her medicine cabinet. The inclusion of a list written by someone who used to work for her about the passive-aggressive things Alyssa used to say ("it's fine", "whatever") and their translations ("It's not fine", "I'll do it myself") seemed completely out of place and didn't seem to serve a larger narrative purpose or theme. A lot of the pieces didn't have a real structure, and kind of meandered to a conclusion. The book also ends really abruptly.
There were a couple essays I liked, and I especially appreciated her frank discussion on living with IBS, because we still have such a taboo around talking about these kinds of bodily functions. And as a fellow cat person, I enjoyed hearing about all her cats and how they had entered and changed her life. Her reflections on why she doesn't plan on having kids, and the bittersweetness of seeing her friends have children, felt real and insightful and like a perspective we don't hear from all that often.
Overall, this was fine, with some special standout moments. But there's no central message or theme running throughout the essays, and a lot of content fell flat for me. I do appreciate her humor and voice, but I think I prefer it in the context of podcasts and interviews.