Sunday, January 24, 2016

Review: "Popular" by Lauren Urasek

Reviewing "Popular", sub-titled "The Ups and Downs of Online Dating from the Most Popular Girl in New York City", turned into a challenge for this free-lance, er, amateur, book reviewer.  When I receive books from publishers/publicists, I make every attempt to read and review, and uphold my end of the deal.  They provide a book, I provide a review.  I've put off writing a review of "Popular" for a few months for various reasons, the main one being the time my main blog, Merry and Bright!, takes during the holidays, leaving no time for Der Bingle Books.  Another reason, though, was that honestly I didn't like this book very much, and writing a negative review is a challenge.

But, I'm accepting the challenge by separating the review of the book from the main reasons I didn't like it.  You'll see what I mean (I hope) as you read further.



When I really don't like a book, I stop reading it, and don't waste my time by trying to finish it.  Reading time is precious, and I'm not going to trudge through something terrible when I have hundreds of others lined up to read.  This was not the case with "Popular".  I finished it, and finished it quickly, in only a few days.  Hmmm... did I *really* not like it?  Read on...

Lauren Urasek is an It Girl of online dating sites, mainly OKCupid, and also is neck-deep in social media sites like Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, etc.  "Popular" is a series of anecdotes and stories about her rise to what we consider fame these days via these internet sites through her dating experiences and edging into more traditional broadcast media.  It's her Fifteen Minutes in book form.  Interspersed are "yeah, this really happened" stories, and  shared experiences from other online-dating singles.  So, it's a bunch of stories about dating in New York in the 201ns, which is enabled through dating apps and social media.

So, the book.  It's entertaining.  Some of the anecdotes are funny, some are in the 'I can't believe they did that, but yes I can' category, particularly when Lauren describes the tweeting behavior of her potential suitors.  It's a picture into the open life of the author.  It's the story of a person that most of us will never be, and will never have the opportunity to be.  It's a vivid painting of a world that is completely foreign to some and all-too-close-to-home for others.  It's easy to read, it's moderately shocking at times, and yeah, I read it.  Many readers will find it very amusing.

What I didn't like was that it felt like I was reading a trainwreck (please excuse the intentional mixing of verb and metaphor).  To me, the author was completely self-centered to the point of selfish, with a victim mentality, and oozing double-standards.  She expected the men she dated to change to match her expectations, yet she is herself totally unwilling to change.  The behavior she saw in many men was unacceptable, yet she herself enthusiastically engaged in the same behavior later on.  Hypocritical, why-won't-the-world-do-what-I-want attitudes everywhere.

So that's why I didn't like the book - I didn't like the author and the picture of herself that she painted.  That's how the book came across to me.  Now, Lauren Urasek may actually be an extraordinary person, kind, charming, and not the impression that comes across in the pages of "Popular".  I hope so, I hope that the image of Ms. Urasek I got from the book is wrong.  Perhaps it's a generational and/or geographical thing that makes it hard for me to relate.  But ultimately this is why I didn't care for the book.  Others may love it and relate to it much better than I.  Reviewers on Amazon are exceedingly positive, so perhaps this book is one you will enjoy more than I.

The book is an interesting and amusing picture of online dating and how social media affects our lives.  It succeeds as a social study, but fails as a literary portrait, in this review's opinion.

A review copy of "Popular" was provided by the publisher.

Amazon link