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wolfbridge's review against another edition
fast-paced
Utterly mindless. Shapiro manages to evade having an interesting thought in over 200 pages. I would give this book less than 0 if it were possible.
acollierastro's review against another edition
1.0
If I attempted to write a book this is the book that I would write. That makes me incredibly sad. This guy tried so hard but this book is so terrible. This book is everything I hate about myself.
bufobufo's review against another edition
fast-paced
3.0
Desperately self-indulgent and nakedly self-conscious. That's compelling to some degree, and I did enjoy reading this book, but I think our collective tolerance for Charlie Chaplin disease is a societal ill.
jennagrace_m's review against another edition
3.0
I thought I was either going to absolutely love or hate this book. By the end I actually just felt pretty indifferent. It was enjoyable to read, the author/main character is the kind of self-absorbed, pretentious prick I would have swooned over in college, and the book confirms why swooning over hipsters is a bad idea.
alibraryofsorts's review
1.0
1.5/5 stars
First, I want to make this clear. I do not regularly read memoirs or autobiographies, but the premise of You’re Not Much Use to Anyone was interesting to me. The book is about David Shapiro who created a famous Tumblr called Pitchfork Reviews Reviews. David would write reviews on the music website Pitchfork’s reviews. You’re Not Much Use to Anyone goes through David’s life after graduating from college, gaining a girlfriend, working a job he doesn’t particularly like, writing blog posts, and meeting new people while he lives in New York. What really got my attention was the fact that this was a 20-something year old who doesn’t know what he wants to do now. I can relate.
And that is all I can relate to.I feel weird saying this because David is an actual person, but I did not like David. He seemed pretty narcissistic. He mentioned fixing his hair so many times, it was a little ridiculous. David didn’t really talk about any feelings. This book would be a great example for the Show vs. Tell lesson (or maybe that lesson is only for fiction…but I feel like that’s not the case). The chapters are typically short, some being only a paragraph, which was interesting and would have made it a quick read if I didn’t have such a hard time reading through David’s explanations (again, telling and not showing much).
I found myself wondering about other people in the story: Mike, David’s parents, Emma, and Alexandra. I was especially interested in the relationship between David and his dad. I do not learn much, and I wished I could have read David’s thoughts on his relationship with his father. However, those scenes usually ended with and he hung up the phone and on to the next chapter.
The book is full of references to David’s Tumblr, but there are no examples of his Tumblr posts. I feel that at least one would be nice. I read about him writing them, how and when, how many followers he gets, etc., but I never saw one post which was strange.
I think my main problem with this was his views on Emma and Alexandra. I don’t know if this is how he sees women, but David was constantly thinking that they would sleep with any guy the moment he left them (To clarify, he dated these women at different times.) For example, with Emma he wrote how he didn’t want to visit her while she was in California working at a far for seven months because he would wonder if she was sleeping with the men she worked with. With Alexandra who was going to be gone for only 2 months, he wrote about how she shouldn’t leave him because he wouldn’t have anyone to have sex with. What he doesn’t seem to understand is both of these women were leaving to do something they were passionate about. Emma with the farm and Alexandra with her writing. They would be gone temporarily, and all he thinks about is sex. When Alexandra is gone, he starts thinking of Emma right away, thinking (and definitely wanting) to have sex with her, and Emma was not okay with this new side of him. He doesn’t support his girlfriends or even care about them, and he wonders why the relationships always end.
I became so frustrated with David which made this book so hard to read. Maybe it would have been different if I could have learned more about other people, but I only had the chance to learn about David. The book was difficult but those last 30 or so pages really took the cake.
There is a line in this book that I highlighted and wrote I’m really hoping this will not be how I sum up this book because that’s how I’m feeling right now. Sadly, it is the best way to summarize and I’ll end my review with it. David has just told a story about a vodka commercial to a few people at a party and he gets an awkward silence. Thinking to himself about it he says:
“My story didn’t really have a point or a punch line” (6).
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.
Reading Dates: August 5-17, 2014
First, I want to make this clear. I do not regularly read memoirs or autobiographies, but the premise of You’re Not Much Use to Anyone was interesting to me. The book is about David Shapiro who created a famous Tumblr called Pitchfork Reviews Reviews. David would write reviews on the music website Pitchfork’s reviews. You’re Not Much Use to Anyone goes through David’s life after graduating from college, gaining a girlfriend, working a job he doesn’t particularly like, writing blog posts, and meeting new people while he lives in New York. What really got my attention was the fact that this was a 20-something year old who doesn’t know what he wants to do now. I can relate.
And that is all I can relate to.I feel weird saying this because David is an actual person, but I did not like David. He seemed pretty narcissistic. He mentioned fixing his hair so many times, it was a little ridiculous. David didn’t really talk about any feelings. This book would be a great example for the Show vs. Tell lesson (or maybe that lesson is only for fiction…but I feel like that’s not the case). The chapters are typically short, some being only a paragraph, which was interesting and would have made it a quick read if I didn’t have such a hard time reading through David’s explanations (again, telling and not showing much).
I found myself wondering about other people in the story: Mike, David’s parents, Emma, and Alexandra. I was especially interested in the relationship between David and his dad. I do not learn much, and I wished I could have read David’s thoughts on his relationship with his father. However, those scenes usually ended with and he hung up the phone and on to the next chapter.
The book is full of references to David’s Tumblr, but there are no examples of his Tumblr posts. I feel that at least one would be nice. I read about him writing them, how and when, how many followers he gets, etc., but I never saw one post which was strange.
I think my main problem with this was his views on Emma and Alexandra. I don’t know if this is how he sees women, but David was constantly thinking that they would sleep with any guy the moment he left them (To clarify, he dated these women at different times.) For example, with Emma he wrote how he didn’t want to visit her while she was in California working at a far for seven months because he would wonder if she was sleeping with the men she worked with. With Alexandra who was going to be gone for only 2 months, he wrote about how she shouldn’t leave him because he wouldn’t have anyone to have sex with. What he doesn’t seem to understand is both of these women were leaving to do something they were passionate about. Emma with the farm and Alexandra with her writing. They would be gone temporarily, and all he thinks about is sex. When Alexandra is gone, he starts thinking of Emma right away, thinking (and definitely wanting) to have sex with her, and Emma was not okay with this new side of him. He doesn’t support his girlfriends or even care about them, and he wonders why the relationships always end.
I became so frustrated with David which made this book so hard to read. Maybe it would have been different if I could have learned more about other people, but I only had the chance to learn about David. The book was difficult but those last 30 or so pages really took the cake.
There is a line in this book that I highlighted and wrote I’m really hoping this will not be how I sum up this book because that’s how I’m feeling right now. Sadly, it is the best way to summarize and I’ll end my review with it. David has just told a story about a vodka commercial to a few people at a party and he gets an awkward silence. Thinking to himself about it he says:
“My story didn’t really have a point or a punch line” (6).
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.
Reading Dates: August 5-17, 2014
rhiannatherad's review against another edition
2.0
I don't want to write anything bad any this book because I feel like the author would internalize it too much. It was an okay quick read, maybe just not my style.
madelineniledam's review against another edition
2.0
There should be some sort of law in publishing that you can't write about yourself at 22 until you're out of your 20s. This book is like every smug guy who has ever cornered me at a house party to mansplain music and pop culture.
Because it's a thinly veiled memoir, I feel bad giving only one star, so I'll give an extra pity star along with the list of most cringeworthy quotes:
"I catch up to her and we ride east as the sun sets in front of us, which looks really sick, and I tell her about why I love riding a fixed gear bike: 'it feels more intuitive and more connected to the road than bikes with gears. It feels very natural and like an almost primordial way of riding a bike.'"
"Because they're punks and we're hipsters and real punks hate hipsters."
"I walked home from work that day and listened to 'Fuck Tha World' by Lil Wayne and cried on the phone to my dad, who said I needed to go to law school so stuff like this wouldn't happen to me anymore."
Because it's a thinly veiled memoir, I feel bad giving only one star, so I'll give an extra pity star along with the list of most cringeworthy quotes:
"I catch up to her and we ride east as the sun sets in front of us, which looks really sick, and I tell her about why I love riding a fixed gear bike: 'it feels more intuitive and more connected to the road than bikes with gears. It feels very natural and like an almost primordial way of riding a bike.'"
"Because they're punks and we're hipsters and real punks hate hipsters."
"I walked home from work that day and listened to 'Fuck Tha World' by Lil Wayne and cried on the phone to my dad, who said I needed to go to law school so stuff like this wouldn't happen to me anymore."
orangejenny's review
1.0
A kiddie coaster of emotions: jealousy ("This guy got a book deal?"), hope ("I have a stream of consciousness, too. I could get a book deal!"), and discouragement ("I've never met the president by happenstance and am not mildly internet famous, I would need talent to get a book deal.").
Not aggressively bad, just quietly dull. Oddly full of whitespace; seventy-plus "chapters" and therefore seventy-plus page breaks in a 200-page book makes this closer to a hundred pages and an hour or two to read. The book is, "Dedicated to people who will read it slowly." Can't say I'd recommend that.
Not aggressively bad, just quietly dull. Oddly full of whitespace; seventy-plus "chapters" and therefore seventy-plus page breaks in a 200-page book makes this closer to a hundred pages and an hour or two to read. The book is, "Dedicated to people who will read it slowly." Can't say I'd recommend that.
maddykissling's review against another edition
1.0
Very self indulgent drek. We get it, you like Belle and Sebastian and smelling your girlfriend's hair and your privacy. That doesn't warrant you writing a thinly veiled autobiographical novel.
koby's review against another edition
2.0
"It's because you seem to have a hard time discerning anybody else's mental state, which is annoying because it's easier to deal with empathetic people but also liberating because I don't become emotionally dependent on your intuitive reassurances, like I would if I was dating someone from this planet."
So says the girlfriend of the protagonist, David Shapiro, in this novel written by David Shapiro. Yup, it's that kind of book. Also, the main character writes the blog Pitchfork Reviews Review, and so does the author. So meta!
I borrowed this book from the library despite its awful cover because I confused the author with Dana Adam Shapiro, who wrote a book I liked. I got through this book despite the fact that the protagonist is hard to like or relate to (he graduated NYU with a degree in economics and his parents support him financially while he works a low level, but secure, job that was handed to him and does not look for work, and then hangs out mostly with other people who are also financially supported by parents and they talk about not getting jobs).
The author also gives himself unbelievable girlfriends for the duration of the novel despite the fact he seems to bring nothing to the table. I barely understand why I finished this book and dislike it more the more time passes. I don't recommend this to anyone, unless you embrace and relate to the worst stereotypes of awkward, privileged, white male hipsters in NYC.
So says the girlfriend of the protagonist, David Shapiro, in this novel written by David Shapiro. Yup, it's that kind of book. Also, the main character writes the blog Pitchfork Reviews Review, and so does the author. So meta!
I borrowed this book from the library despite its awful cover because I confused the author with Dana Adam Shapiro, who wrote a book I liked. I got through this book despite the fact that the protagonist is hard to like or relate to (he graduated NYU with a degree in economics and his parents support him financially while he works a low level, but secure, job that was handed to him and does not look for work, and then hangs out mostly with other people who are also financially supported by parents and they talk about not getting jobs).
The author also gives himself unbelievable girlfriends for the duration of the novel despite the fact he seems to bring nothing to the table. I barely understand why I finished this book and dislike it more the more time passes. I don't recommend this to anyone, unless you embrace and relate to the worst stereotypes of awkward, privileged, white male hipsters in NYC.