Leave a comment Posted on by stennyi

Kate Bolick’s Making A Life of One’s Own

97814721511861.0 Star

Fellow Spinsters, Beware! Bolick is a fake!

This book is so bad. Kate Bolick is deliberately misleading. She is NOT a spinster. In fact, she’s been constantly in relationships since high school and in between boyfriends; she has to date because she can’t eat alone. Why exactly did she write this book? Is this suppose to be her pièces de résistance? It seems like she wanted a catchy title so she could sell a book about her extremely self-centered romantic misadventures.

Let’s catalog all the moments I hated from the first half of the book (I gave up at that point because my anger as a duped reader was overwhelming):

– One major aspect to her realizing that she might be a spinster was when she realized she didn’t want to have sex. So a lack of sex drive equals a spinster? Umm no. I’m single and I orgasm every day. I know, too much information. Apologies.

– Single women are lonely. Wrong again. Being alone and loving solitude does not make a person “lonely.” This chick is a writer? For magazines? And doesn’t even know this? WTF?

– She refers to herself as a child who can’t become an adult because she’s always being taken care of by boyfriends and parents. And men don’t have that. So let’s focus on that double standard for a few paragraphs What. The. Flying. Fuck. Oh, I know! White privilege. (Bonus: auto correct wanted to make that “who’re privilege”! Thanks for the laugh, Apple.)

– Joys of a Spinster according to Bolick: Eating a Big Mac and crawling into bed without disgusting anyone. Really. That’s what she said, guys. I can’t. I just can’t. This chick pisses me off.

This book is a failure. I hate it.

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I’m pairing this book with a Duchesse de Bourgogne, a Flanders red ale that’s 6.2% ABV. This is one of my favorite beers and I needed something to love while reading this book. The Duchesse is a sour ale so be ready for a tart punch to your palette.

Photo credits: Verhaeghe Brewery

Format: Paperback.

2 Comments Posted on by Derz

Richard Hell’s I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp

IMG_20160222_1814362.0 Stars

So this wasn’t extremely poorly written. At least Hell has that going for himself. It wasn’t too difficult to get through this book, I just wish it wasn’t seeping with arrogance and misogyny. Humility is not a word Richard Hell seems to be familiar with. I enjoyed certain aspects of his story but overall, it seemed just to be a recollection of his cavalier views on specific individuals in the early emerging Punk Scene and his various encounters with “pussy.” What I did appreciate were the few recollections concerning his interviews. I found his answers amusing and wished there was more of that in the book. If you’re a fan of Punk music and the beginning of the scene, then this book might interest you. Hell was supposedly the inspiration for the Sex Pistols and originator of Punk fashion, which is probably why his head is so far up his own ass.

I chose to pair up Hell’s autobiography with Amsterdam brewery, Brouwerij ‘t IJ’s Flink beer. Flink is a blond beer with a bitter taste. As bitter as Hell seems to be about the lack of appreciation he’s gotten.

Quote: “I think love is sort of a con you play on yourself. I think the whole conception of love is something the previous generation invents to justify having created you. You know I think the real reason children are born is because parents are so bored they have children to amuse themselves. They’re so bored they don’t have anything else to do so they have a child because that will keep them busy for a while. Then to justify to the kid the reason he exists they tell him there’s such a thing as love and that’s where you come from because me and your daddy or me and your mommy were in love and that’s why you exist. When actually it was because they were bored out of their minds.”

Format: Hardcover.