{"id":68301,"date":"2019-12-17T22:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T03:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/archives\/68301"},"modified":"2019-12-17T22:00:55","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T03:00:55","slug":"not-that-kind-of-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/archives\/68301","title":{"rendered":"Not That Kind of Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER \u2022 Includes two new essays! NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MICHIKO KAKUTANI, THE NEW YORK TIMES \u2022 NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BUZZFEED, THE GLOBE AND MAIL, AND LIBRARY JOURNAL For readers of Nora Ephron, Tina Fey, and David Sedaris, this hilarious, wise, and fiercely candid collection of personal essays establishes Lena Dunham\u2014the acclaimed creator, producer, and star of HBO\u2019s Girls\u2014as one of the most original young talents writing today. In Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham illuminates the experiences that are part of making one\u2019s way in the world: falling in love, feeling alone, being ten pounds overweight despite eating only health food, having to prove yourself in a room full of men twice your age, finding true love, and most of all, having the guts to believe that your story is one that deserves to be told. \u201cTake My Virginity (No Really, Take It)\u201d is the account of Dunham\u2019s first time, and how her expectations of sex didn\u2019t quite live up to the actual event (\u201cNo floodgate had been opened, no vault of true womanhood unlocked\u201d); \u201cGirls & Jerks\u201d explores her former attraction to less-than-nice guys\u2014guys who had perfected the \u201cdynamic of disrespect\u201d she found so intriguing; \u201cIs This Even Real?\u201d is a meditation on her lifelong obsession with death and dying\u2014what she calls her \u201cgenetically predestined morbidity.\u201d And in \u201cI Didn\u2019t F*** Them, but They Yelled at Me,\u201d she imagines the tell-all she will write when she is eighty and past caring, able to reflect honestly on the sexism and condescension she has encountered in Hollywood, where women are \u201ctreated like the paper thingies that protect glasses in hotel bathrooms\u2014necessary but infinitely disposable.\u201d Exuberant, moving, and keenly observed, Not That Kind of Girl is a series of dispatches from the frontlines of the struggle that is growing up. \u201cI\u2019m already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you,\u201d Dunham writes. \u201cBut if I can take what I\u2019ve learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine will have been worthwhile.\u201d Praise for Not That Kind of Girl \u201cThe gifted Ms. Dunham not only writes with observant precision, but also brings a measure of perspective, nostalgia and an older person\u2019s sort of wisdom to her portrait of her (not all that much) younger self and her world. . . . As acute and heartfelt as it is funny.\u201d\u2014Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times \u201cIt\u2019s not Lena Dunham\u2019s candor that makes me gasp. Rather, it\u2019s her writing\u2014which is full of surprises where you least expect them. A fine, subversive book.\u201d\u2014David Sedaris \u201cThis book should be required reading for anyone who thinks they understand the experience of being a young woman in our culture. I thought I knew the author rather well, and I found many (not altogether welcome) surprises.\u201d\u2014Carroll Dunham \u201cWitty, illuminating, maddening, bracingly bleak . . . [Dunham] is a genuine artist, and a disturber of the order.\u201d\u2014The Atlantic From the Trade Paperback edition.