- Rating: 2/5
Key takeaways
- It was a bit weird reading this book in 2023, many years after watching Girls and knowing about Lena Dunham.
- The humor is at times excellent, just the type of dark and honest one-liners that are sprinkled all over Girls. But the same things also make the book a bit weird as an autobiography: there are events that are only described indirectly and it’s sometimes hard to follow.
- Her descriptions of the sexual assault are, however, very gripping and disturbing in their attention to detail.
It’s been interesting to read some of the commentary online (check the Goodreads reviews) that accuses Dunham of being a self-absorbed privileged white girl. She’s been put on this feminist pedestal and made out to be a superstar for all women, and people get offended when she is not perfect. We wouldn’t ask of a male writer to include all relevant male experiences in his first book, yet we do that of successful female writers. Reminds me of this passage in The Tyranny of Stuctureless:
This is one main source of the ire that is often felt toward the women who are labeled “stars.” Because they were not selected by the women in the movement to represent the movement’s views, they are resented when the press presumes that they speak for the movement. But as long as the movement does not select its own spokeswomen, such women will be placed in that role by the press and the public, regardless of their own desires.