Not That Kind of Girl

Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned" by Lena Dunham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sum it up in a sentence (or two): Lena Dunham's memoir detailing "What She's Learned."

First thoughts: I was hesitant to read this because I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Dunham. She, of course, doesn't know this. It stems from my frustrations with the nepotism and upper middle class white people problems of Girls, but I wanted to give Dunham, the writer, a chance, even if I'm not thrilled with Dunham, the TV show writer/producer/director/actress.

Favorite quotes:
"But that's also how I felt in high school, sure that my people were from elsewhere and going elsewhere and that they would recognize me when they saw me. They would like me enough that it wouldn't matter if I liked myself. They would see the good in me so that I could, too." p xiii

    "There is nothing gutsier to me that a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told, especially if that person is a woman. As hard as we have worked and as far as we have come, there are still so many forces conspiring to tell women that our concerns are petty, our opinions aren't needed, that we lack the gravitas necessary for our stories to matter. That personal writing by women is no more than an exercise in vanity and that we should appreciate this new world for women, sit down, and shut up.
    But I want to tell my stories and, more than that, I have to in order to stay sane." p xvi

Recommended for: me. As I read, I realized that a lot of Dunham's experiences resonated with my own. Even though I can hardly relate to her upbringing, childhood, life, or relationships, somehow we still share similar feelings about all of these things in general.

Further recommendations: women and the people who love them, writers, daughters, mothers.

Final thoughts: Not That Kind of Girl makes me want to write more and better. That's a good thing. I'm cautiously excited for whatever Dunham does next. I'm still not watching Girls.

View all my reviews