A review by melissabalick
My Heart Is an Idiot: Essays by Davy Rothbart
4.0
If your heart is also an idiot, you'll relate with this book.
Davy Rothbart seems to get passed over by the ladies more often than most. Maybe it's because he's so earnest about falling in love with almost every girl he meets that the girls sense it is impermanent? Or just because nice guys finish last? Or because he seems to be on the road so often? I suspect it's a combination of these things, and also that, as he posits toward the end of the book, it's the chase he's really after. He loves falling in love constantly.
From one woman's point of view, the fact that a book like this exists speaks to a number of possibly-important lessons. One, that there are men out there whose hearts are as soft and squishy as our own hearts. Two, that there are at least a couple intelligent, weird, kind men over the age of 30 who would send pee to a stranger, travel immense distances more than once in his life to meet with someone he never met before who could just maybe be "the one," and who would befriend someone in prison who was wrongfully convicted of murder and help try to free him--and yet isn't married. And three, that men really are cheating scum. Even when they seem to be on a constant search for a good girlfriend and they find one, they'll cheat on them. Of course, I already knew this, both from experience and also from reading the excellent book Sex at Dawn, which, to be fair, teaches us that all humans are cheaters, regardless of gender.
In any case, this is an entertaining, quick read where some really crazy, unexpected stuff happens. Odd friendships are forged quickly, drunken shenanigans result in waking up naked on the streets of NYC, and a dead body is found. No joke! You should probably read it.
Davy Rothbart seems to get passed over by the ladies more often than most. Maybe it's because he's so earnest about falling in love with almost every girl he meets that the girls sense it is impermanent? Or just because nice guys finish last? Or because he seems to be on the road so often? I suspect it's a combination of these things, and also that, as he posits toward the end of the book, it's the chase he's really after. He loves falling in love constantly.
From one woman's point of view, the fact that a book like this exists speaks to a number of possibly-important lessons. One, that there are men out there whose hearts are as soft and squishy as our own hearts. Two, that there are at least a couple intelligent, weird, kind men over the age of 30 who would send pee to a stranger, travel immense distances more than once in his life to meet with someone he never met before who could just maybe be "the one," and who would befriend someone in prison who was wrongfully convicted of murder and help try to free him--and yet isn't married. And three, that men really are cheating scum. Even when they seem to be on a constant search for a good girlfriend and they find one, they'll cheat on them. Of course, I already knew this, both from experience and also from reading the excellent book Sex at Dawn, which, to be fair, teaches us that all humans are cheaters, regardless of gender.
In any case, this is an entertaining, quick read where some really crazy, unexpected stuff happens. Odd friendships are forged quickly, drunken shenanigans result in waking up naked on the streets of NYC, and a dead body is found. No joke! You should probably read it.