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noachoc 's review for:
Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love
by Jonathan Van Ness
Note: Three stars, from me, is not a terrible review. Three stars from me is "this was fine, but not really my thing, but I didn't DISlike it."
It's a relatively quick, relatively fun read, and if you're a fan of Van Ness's voice on Queer Eye, it is very much in his voice.
I think, though, that I was looking for something that went a little deeper. He often seems to breeze over the hard things, not shying away from them, mind you, but neither does he seem inclined to examine them too closely. He's being himself, mind you, and that's a good thing but...
Okay, so my youngest niece, right? She's wonderful and bubbly and excited about everything. She and Van Ness would get on like a house on fire. But me, I'm reserved and quiet and generally fairly emotionally flat, at least on the outside, and it took me a long time to realize that my youngest niece was GENUINELY bubbly and excited about everything and that she was not, somehow, making fun of me or putting on an act (she, for her part, thought I didn't like her because, as I said, reserved, quiet, and emotionally flat). It's sort of like that with Van Ness's writing. It's just so different from how I think and narrate my life and process things that I have trouble taking it seriously, but truly believe this trouble stems, not from him being bad at being himself or at writing about being himself, but from a fundamental difference in the way we react to the world. Neither of us is wrong, but this disconnect made it hard, for me, to connect with his writing.
Note: I did love, though, that you can tell (mostly) which names he made up because they're all Russian. That was hilarious.
It's a relatively quick, relatively fun read, and if you're a fan of Van Ness's voice on Queer Eye, it is very much in his voice.
I think, though, that I was looking for something that went a little deeper. He often seems to breeze over the hard things, not shying away from them, mind you, but neither does he seem inclined to examine them too closely. He's being himself, mind you, and that's a good thing but...
Okay, so my youngest niece, right? She's wonderful and bubbly and excited about everything. She and Van Ness would get on like a house on fire. But me, I'm reserved and quiet and generally fairly emotionally flat, at least on the outside, and it took me a long time to realize that my youngest niece was GENUINELY bubbly and excited about everything and that she was not, somehow, making fun of me or putting on an act (she, for her part, thought I didn't like her because, as I said, reserved, quiet, and emotionally flat). It's sort of like that with Van Ness's writing. It's just so different from how I think and narrate my life and process things that I have trouble taking it seriously, but truly believe this trouble stems, not from him being bad at being himself or at writing about being himself, but from a fundamental difference in the way we react to the world. Neither of us is wrong, but this disconnect made it hard, for me, to connect with his writing.
Note: I did love, though, that you can tell (mostly) which names he made up because they're all Russian. That was hilarious.