A review by offbalance80
Perfect Tunes by Emily Gould
1.0
The description, and the first chapter or two of this book had me completely and utterly suckered. I thought this was going to be a story about art, music, songwriting and why they can be such difficult things to chase. The cover was stunning (no, seriously, kudos to whomever at Simon and Schuster put this one together, it's gorgeous). If only what was sandwiched between was as colorful or intriguing (it's not).
Like so many other books, this is a book of how an incredibly boring human being is surrounded by more interesting human beings and resists with their entire being any way of becoming an interesting person. Further, in an absolutely astounding turn of talent, the author makes time spent in the East Village of New York City in the early 2000s (back when it still had just enough grit to a little interesting and a lot of fun) completely devoid of any spark or excitement; as dull as this timid milquetoast of a main character. Laura (said protagonist), says "um" a lot. She is too afraid to say anything at all. The only thing she hates more than praise is being the center of attention, which is absolutely mind-boggling considering that she came to New York to write and perform music. Unless the hundreds of venues I've been to in my lifetime have been lying to me, the only way to perform is to literally be the center of attention. And to top it off, she's about as dumb as the sack of flour that she resembles. She takes a job she doesn't like despite her reservations because she doesn't want to ask her far more savvy, interesting roommate (why, oh, why couldn't this book have been about Callie?) for help or advice. And the worst of all, she falls in lust(love?) with Timothy Chalamet stand-in Dylan. The Dylan section of the book was possibly the best part of this slog, as they provided many (inadvertent) laugh-out-loud funny moments. The mere fact that Dylan had "the most beautiful dick in the world," had me in stitches (and writing parodies of Prince songs). Our heroine continues to brush off chance after chance to make her music an actual thing, because like, reasons? Tell me, if Laura (our hero) wrote the perfect song, and liked writing songs, why didn't she do anything with it? She doesn't tell Dylan all of how she feels because like, wow, feelings are like, weird, you know?
When Boring Sack of Flour and Beautiful Dick are separated, our heroine finds out that oops! She's having his baby. And decides to keep it, for reasons that are completely incomprehensible to anyone who has been a 20-year-old woman living in New York City and trying to pay bills (something I have some experience with). She falls neatly into the category of being too damn stupid to understand the black hole of time and money that having a child can be, and proceeds to flail about for chapters as we are treated to endless paragraphs about the variant bodily fluids that a child is full of and how expensive it is to have one. That goes on for an endless amount of time, while she pushes off any and all opportunities to revive the career that was supposed to be SO important to her, all because a capricious toddler knew exactly how to manipulate her, and she couldn't even stand up to a fucking three-year-old. Eventually we meet that three year old 11 years later for some reason that never becomes clear, Something Else Melodramatic Happens and then the book ends.
The worst thing about this book is that we're not given any room to understand the motivation of these characters, why they do the things they do or live the lives they lead. The main character denies herself anything resembling agency or self-ownership so often that it's incomprehensible as to why we should even root for her ever, or at all. The other characters are there to prod the story along, mostly because the lead is too meek to even do that much.
Avoid, avoid, avoid.
Like so many other books, this is a book of how an incredibly boring human being is surrounded by more interesting human beings and resists with their entire being any way of becoming an interesting person. Further, in an absolutely astounding turn of talent, the author makes time spent in the East Village of New York City in the early 2000s (back when it still had just enough grit to a little interesting and a lot of fun) completely devoid of any spark or excitement; as dull as this timid milquetoast of a main character. Laura (said protagonist), says "um" a lot. She is too afraid to say anything at all. The only thing she hates more than praise is being the center of attention, which is absolutely mind-boggling considering that she came to New York to write and perform music. Unless the hundreds of venues I've been to in my lifetime have been lying to me, the only way to perform is to literally be the center of attention. And to top it off, she's about as dumb as the sack of flour that she resembles. She takes a job she doesn't like despite her reservations because she doesn't want to ask her far more savvy, interesting roommate (why, oh, why couldn't this book have been about Callie?) for help or advice. And the worst of all, she falls in lust(love?) with Timothy Chalamet stand-in Dylan. The Dylan section of the book was possibly the best part of this slog, as they provided many (inadvertent) laugh-out-loud funny moments. The mere fact that Dylan had "the most beautiful dick in the world," had me in stitches (and writing parodies of Prince songs). Our heroine continues to brush off chance after chance to make her music an actual thing, because like, reasons? Tell me, if Laura (our hero) wrote the perfect song, and liked writing songs, why didn't she do anything with it? She doesn't tell Dylan all of how she feels because like, wow, feelings are like, weird, you know?
When Boring Sack of Flour and Beautiful Dick are separated, our heroine finds out that oops! She's having his baby. And decides to keep it, for reasons that are completely incomprehensible to anyone who has been a 20-year-old woman living in New York City and trying to pay bills (something I have some experience with). She falls neatly into the category of being too damn stupid to understand the black hole of time and money that having a child can be, and proceeds to flail about for chapters as we are treated to endless paragraphs about the variant bodily fluids that a child is full of and how expensive it is to have one. That goes on for an endless amount of time, while she pushes off any and all opportunities to revive the career that was supposed to be SO important to her, all because a capricious toddler knew exactly how to manipulate her, and she couldn't even stand up to a fucking three-year-old. Eventually we meet that three year old 11 years later for some reason that never becomes clear, Something Else Melodramatic Happens and then the book ends.
The worst thing about this book is that we're not given any room to understand the motivation of these characters, why they do the things they do or live the lives they lead. The main character denies herself anything resembling agency or self-ownership so often that it's incomprehensible as to why we should even root for her ever, or at all. The other characters are there to prod the story along, mostly because the lead is too meek to even do that much.
Avoid, avoid, avoid.