A review by petersonline
And the Heart Says Whatever by Emily Gould
4.0
There's a scene in Jeffrey Eugenides' novel The Marriage Plot in which Madeleine, the main character, wakes up one morning after a dead-end party, hungover in her messy apartment. She gets a text from her parents saying that they're at the door of her apartment, waiting to be buzzed in. It's the day of her graduation. I remember reading this scene a couple years back and resonating heavily with it, it reminded me of the days my parents would come to visit me at school the morning after a bender that involved throwing up and getting three hours of sleep. It's definitely a lot better to look back on those moments with a sober mindset and let out a little laugh, but the nostalgia is still heart-wrenching. What it felt like to read that particular scene was what it felt like to read the entirety of Emily Gould's short essay/memoir collection And The Heart Says Whatever.
The title of this book is particularly funny and resonant to me, because it reminds me of something I would say. In fact, so much of my love of Emily Gould's work is due to the fact that I see much of myself in her. I feel like we process things similarly, and try to go about life with a very "whatever" sort of attitude while, deep down, very much actually caring about every minute detail of life. "And the heart says whatever," as a title, reminds me of myself because whenever I'm disinterested in something, or frustrated about something, I'll describe it as being "whatever." For example, when someone asks me about *insert annoying thing here* I'll respond by saying "Yeah, that's just kind of whatever." Not a sentence that makes much grammatical sense, but perfectly encapsulates what I'm trying to say. The title resonates with me because, most of the time, matters of the heart are very much just "whatever."
The essays in this collection center around Emily Gould being in her 20s in New York City. Save for one essay in the beginning, a resonant story about her senior year of high school, preparing to go to Kenyon College with much uncertainty. A running theme through this book is her long-term, rocky relationship with a guy named Joseph. Joseph is a recurring character in much of the stories. However, like many of the characters Gould introduces throughout the collection, they are merely props that inform the way Gould moves through the world, how she thinks about herself and everyone around her. Gould's narration in this story reminded me of the protagonists in Katie Kitamura's A Separation and Lynn Steger Strong's Want. It's a meandering narration style that doesn't leave anything out, allowing you to fully live in Gould's head. For someone who once got in trouble for being a chronic oversharer, I think Gould's oversharing is more of a gift than anything.
Emily Gould rose to fame on the internet during a time where, if anyone expressed even a hint of sadness, they were seen as a crazy oversharer. Gould burst onto the scene unafraid to express her opinions about herself and other people. Backlash quickly ensued, to the point where she got publicly dragged by Jimmy Kimmel on Larry King Live, with Kimmel even going so far as to say that Gould was "going to hell" because of her involvement in the Gawker Stalker Map, a now-defunct way to know where celebrities were at any given time. Emily Gould is an example of someone whose biting critiques delivered behind a screen got thrown into the limelight, drawing a separation between Gould the person and Gould the social media user. Gould the person seems like a perfectly likable woman, whose love of celebrity gossip and Lana Del Rey's music make her someone I would love to be friends with. However, even in a time where oversharing is more common than ever, many still cringe at people who have made an entire career out of it.
That being said, I'm proud to be a part of Gould's little fanbase of people who love the way she can articulate what's going on in the zeitgeist, and how she can connect it back to her personal life. And The Heart Says Whatever, while a bit outdated because it came out in 2010, is a great, albeit forgettable foray into Gould's skills as a memoirist. I recommend reading this book, and then reading her article "Replaying My Shame" on The Cut right after, for a perfect display of how Emily Gould and her writing have grown over the past 10ish years.
The title of this book is particularly funny and resonant to me, because it reminds me of something I would say. In fact, so much of my love of Emily Gould's work is due to the fact that I see much of myself in her. I feel like we process things similarly, and try to go about life with a very "whatever" sort of attitude while, deep down, very much actually caring about every minute detail of life. "And the heart says whatever," as a title, reminds me of myself because whenever I'm disinterested in something, or frustrated about something, I'll describe it as being "whatever." For example, when someone asks me about *insert annoying thing here* I'll respond by saying "Yeah, that's just kind of whatever." Not a sentence that makes much grammatical sense, but perfectly encapsulates what I'm trying to say. The title resonates with me because, most of the time, matters of the heart are very much just "whatever."
The essays in this collection center around Emily Gould being in her 20s in New York City. Save for one essay in the beginning, a resonant story about her senior year of high school, preparing to go to Kenyon College with much uncertainty. A running theme through this book is her long-term, rocky relationship with a guy named Joseph. Joseph is a recurring character in much of the stories. However, like many of the characters Gould introduces throughout the collection, they are merely props that inform the way Gould moves through the world, how she thinks about herself and everyone around her. Gould's narration in this story reminded me of the protagonists in Katie Kitamura's A Separation and Lynn Steger Strong's Want. It's a meandering narration style that doesn't leave anything out, allowing you to fully live in Gould's head. For someone who once got in trouble for being a chronic oversharer, I think Gould's oversharing is more of a gift than anything.
Emily Gould rose to fame on the internet during a time where, if anyone expressed even a hint of sadness, they were seen as a crazy oversharer. Gould burst onto the scene unafraid to express her opinions about herself and other people. Backlash quickly ensued, to the point where she got publicly dragged by Jimmy Kimmel on Larry King Live, with Kimmel even going so far as to say that Gould was "going to hell" because of her involvement in the Gawker Stalker Map, a now-defunct way to know where celebrities were at any given time. Emily Gould is an example of someone whose biting critiques delivered behind a screen got thrown into the limelight, drawing a separation between Gould the person and Gould the social media user. Gould the person seems like a perfectly likable woman, whose love of celebrity gossip and Lana Del Rey's music make her someone I would love to be friends with. However, even in a time where oversharing is more common than ever, many still cringe at people who have made an entire career out of it.
That being said, I'm proud to be a part of Gould's little fanbase of people who love the way she can articulate what's going on in the zeitgeist, and how she can connect it back to her personal life. And The Heart Says Whatever, while a bit outdated because it came out in 2010, is a great, albeit forgettable foray into Gould's skills as a memoirist. I recommend reading this book, and then reading her article "Replaying My Shame" on The Cut right after, for a perfect display of how Emily Gould and her writing have grown over the past 10ish years.