A review by jeffreyreads
What If This Were Enough? by Heather Havrilesky
3.0
I really, really liked the idea of this essay collection since I believe it to be an incredibly important and relevant topic of conversation, especially in this day and age. However, it felt like the author lacked depth in her overall argument, since a lot of what she explains in the introduction isn’t actually explored much further.
It seems to me that her only argument was that the rise of technology and digital media has led to the general population, especially young people who have come of age with social media, to feel inadequate and even depressed because it feels like nothing will ever be enough to satisfy us and our unrealistic expectations and/or goals. I agree 100%. But she really doesn’t take the argument much further than that. A lot of the essays seem to be about an underlying theme that capitalism controls our lives and convinces us we need materialistic commodities to keep us sane in an increasingly consumer-driven world. Okay, cool. The idea that capitalism has put a spell on society and convinced them they need to buy things they don’t need to feel good about themselves is nothing new, ask anyone. If you’re going to make such a sweeping generalization about society at large, you’re gonna have to take it a lot further than that. Insipid anecdotes from your personal life and your own observations of pop culture and feminism are not enough to bring it all together.
It’s very well written, well rounded, and well researched. The first few essays really make you feel like this will be the book that will explain everything you haven’t been able to articulate. But then it feels like the author didn’t have much else to say about all that, and she decides to fill the rest of her word quota with analyses of pop culture and HBO television series. Congrats, you can analyze a cultural text. Just figure out how to bring it together with what you brilliantly put together in your introduction, and then your next book will probably be a lot better.
It seems to me that her only argument was that the rise of technology and digital media has led to the general population, especially young people who have come of age with social media, to feel inadequate and even depressed because it feels like nothing will ever be enough to satisfy us and our unrealistic expectations and/or goals. I agree 100%. But she really doesn’t take the argument much further than that. A lot of the essays seem to be about an underlying theme that capitalism controls our lives and convinces us we need materialistic commodities to keep us sane in an increasingly consumer-driven world. Okay, cool. The idea that capitalism has put a spell on society and convinced them they need to buy things they don’t need to feel good about themselves is nothing new, ask anyone. If you’re going to make such a sweeping generalization about society at large, you’re gonna have to take it a lot further than that. Insipid anecdotes from your personal life and your own observations of pop culture and feminism are not enough to bring it all together.
It’s very well written, well rounded, and well researched. The first few essays really make you feel like this will be the book that will explain everything you haven’t been able to articulate. But then it feels like the author didn’t have much else to say about all that, and she decides to fill the rest of her word quota with analyses of pop culture and HBO television series. Congrats, you can analyze a cultural text. Just figure out how to bring it together with what you brilliantly put together in your introduction, and then your next book will probably be a lot better.