Credit: Random House
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  • Random House

Our review of Lena Dunham’s new memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, comes out in today’s paper! To celebrate, here are some wonderful/horrifying excerpts from other people’s reviews of the book, lovingly collected by Maggie Lange at Vulture, who writes, “I read 23,219 words (a respectable novella!) worth of reviews, and I’m here to report that Not That Kind of Girl left few critical stones unperturbed.” BLESS YOU, MAGGIE LANGE AT VULTURE! Taking one for the team.

Some true gems:

Then there were the critics with questions. Here’s a sampling:

“How much is Dunham inhabiting a persona — in effect wearing a mask made from her own face?”

“Is Dunham’s entire project, so supposedly ‘honest’ and ‘real,’ in fact a web of unlikely things … said flirtatiously? Who is she when we’re not looking?”

“The question is, after all this can there really be anything left for Lena to share?”

“What if she had to settle for anonymity?”

“So what we have to look forward to in 55 years?”

“She is a brilliant talent who will write better books than this – and, really, who can blame her for taking the money and running?”

“Did we hear any kickback when Aziz Ansari got $3.5 million to write about ‘modern love’? Do I have to have capital-f Feelings about Not That Kind of Girl?”

“How can anyone hear this level of vitriol — and understand it to be so obviously rooted in the profound threat of a woman who does not care about your estimations of her—and not openly and enthusiastically root for her?”

“And what is a voice of a generation, really?”

Is it just me, or do critics interrogating themselves while ostensibly reviewing a book sound a lot like Lindsay Lohan simply repeating the question she’s just been asked during a televised interview with Oprah to avoid answering it directly? What is it about Lena Dunham that turns what should be book reviews into navel-gazing mullings-over?

Kate Berlant (who will be at All Jane No Dick this weekend—MARK YOUR CALENDARS!) has one possible response, via Twitter:

By this measure, Helen Lewis at the New Statesman isn’t real, and I (SPOILER!) have low expectations of myself but frequently exceed them. What does Lena Dunham’s book say about you?

2 replies on “Critics Share Feelings About Lena Dunham’s Memoir (and So Do I!)”

  2. If people aren’t “how dare she” but just don’t like the book, what does that say about them? (I haven’t read the Merc’s review yet.)

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