A review by misscbingley
And the Heart Says Whatever by Emily Gould

3.0

I keep flip-flopping between "liked it" and "it was okay." I missed out on the whole Emily-Gould-is-all-over-the-internet era, but I've since caught up on all of the Gawker/NYTimes/ex-boyfriend drama that played out online (the Vanity Fair article "You've Got (Hate) Mail" provides a thorough summation). Her memoir is perceptive. She is at times eloquent. The book is also biting and unapologetically self-absorbed. She can be self-deprecating, but I sometimes got the sense that it was just for show. She has a knack for painting vivid, unflattering pictures, and she effortlessly skewers everything and everyone in her path, including herself, including the people she claims to admire. It makes for juicy reading, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about knowing her in real life, at least the Emily of this period. She says at the beginning that she hasn't changed, she would do all of it over again. I wonder if her stance has altered at all as she's aged? I did find myself hoping she'd publish another spill-it-all memoir, so I suppose I enjoyed it at least that much.