I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I've Dated Review

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(More customer reviews)Julie Klausner dates a lot of losers. Which is weird, she tells us, because she is AWESOME.
Which begs the question: so why is she dating such losers?
Disclaimer: I don't know Klausner the person, probably never will. I'd very much like her to be awesome -- there should be more awesome people in the world.
But Julie-as-portrayed-in-a-book-written-by-Julie-Klausner did not impress me.
The book is a series of essays, loosely connected in that they all address Klausner's sexual life/romantic life/theories on men. I found some more interesting than others; usually where she left the personal and examined cultural icons like Kermit and Piggy or Jim and Pam (from The Office US) to see if she could suss out a relationship zeitgeist. The essays about specific hookups had a depressing sameness to them: Girl meets Guy. Girl deducts Guy is not on her level, but Girl is single, so why not. Girl has sex with Guy, hopes that this will improve the relationship. Eventually, a)Guy dumps Girl or b)Girl decides relationship is not improving, dumps Guy.
Klausner isn't dull, don't get me wrong, and sometimes she delivers killer black humor. But she is incredibly frustrating as a memoirist, because "I Don't Care About Your Band" reads like an extended version of that joke about the terrible food served in too-small portions. Although she tries to persuade us her escapades are rooted in romantic optimism and the belief that, some day, she'll meet someone who deserves her, she doesn't actually like any of these guys. With few exceptions, none of her hookups are all that captivating: they're not as funny as she is, not as mature, not as intelligent, not as attractive, not as generous in bed, not as thin, not as sane, not as sophisticated, not as talented. "So why didn't they like me?" she mourns, bewildered.
Klausner has a really interesting thesis (I did say she had moments, right?) that most guys want is a girl no one else knows is pretty. (See above: The Office US, Pam.) I think it's a fascinating idea, but I also think Klausner suffers the gender flip: she wants a guy no one else knows is a mensch, whom she can elevate from his squalid extended boyhood into a Real Adult Relationship. Either that, or she's setting up her ego to fail: she confesses to crushing on the disinterested, as if getting him interested will prove her self-worth. Once he's interested, though, the real test begins -- can she make him love her enough that he'll "grow into the man he knows I need to be with." Yes, that's a quote.
The style of the book is chatty and breezy, but the overall effect felt like getting cornered at a party by That Girl. You know the one, she'll get hammered and trot out her theory that she is actually a gay man! Trapped in a straight woman's body! Get it? Because she enjoys giving oral sex (and women don't) and is hilariously witty (which (white) women aren't). I picked this up because it came recommended by the writers at [...], and they should be ashamed of themselves. A liberal feminist website has no business promoting a book with such strong undercurrents of biphobia and bi-erasure ("a lot of bisexuality" in a girl means she's just straight and "horny," but even a "little bit of bisexuality" in a guy means he's actually gay), transphobia (a woman who doesn't have ex-friends she hates must be "a convincing tranny," because she's not actually a woman, haha get it?), and misogyny.
Yeah, you heard me.
Klausner talks a good talk. She encourages women to do their own thing, be their own ego-boosters, and entertain the idea that what they find attractive in romantic partners is what they really want for themselves, in their own lives. All good stuff. But the actual women populating her book are a mix of mean girls, backstabbers, frumpy friends, boring lesbians (they advise her to dump guys she dislikes -- haha, what do they know about dating men, right ladies?), and the faceless "mousy" girls she accuses guys of defaulting to in the face of her intimidating awesome. She encourages her readers to go out and get a gay man as a best friend ASAP, as they are the only true BFF material. (She confides, in a masterful stroke of pigeonholing men on the basis of sexuality, that she can judge a woman's level of taste and sophistication on her number of gay male friends please observe AS MY JAW DROPS.) Friendships with women are undermined by innate competitiveness and jealousy, according to her, and other women are never truly happy about your personal or professional successes. Not all female friendships are like that, Klausner demurs, but she's warning you.
Seriously? That's the kind of message you want to package in with go-girlism and rah-rah "we ladies deserve real men" dating anecdotes?
Sorry, Ms. Klausner. I just don't care about your book.

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Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment Review

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(More customer reviews)The central premise of Steve Harvey's book is that women are not setting stringent enough standards in their romantic dealings with men. As such, he posits, they are giving away their social power and selling themselves short on their dating/mating goals.
Steve is partially correct, but he misses the central point. It is true that women do tend to settle for less than they truly want when dating, but the damage they're doing to themselves is not ultimately a result of letting men get away with murder, so to speak. Rather, the problem originates from the fact that women are choosing the wrong men. Decent men don't look for any opportunity to take advantage of women. They don't take that mile when given the proverbial inch. The men who do are the players, chiselers and con artists, the kinds of men who may look good in the store window but fall totally apart when you get them home from the mall.
'Act Like a Lady' ultimately is a rehashing of the familiar 'men are incorrigible dogs' theory of gender. It's a tired story that I'd hope we had moved past, but here it is again in a new package. Yes, men like sex. Yes, men like to look around. But decent men are able to control their urges, especially when they know that not doing so will cause great pain to those around them. Steve's theory doesn't stand up to real life, where if you spend any time, you quickly realize that uniqueness is a defining human personality trait.
Most women do have high standards--that is, until they run into a man who knows all the right things to say to circumvent their defenses. A woman can absolutely KNOW that she's worth all the trouble, but she'll totally drop her guard when a skilled player comes along saying all the right things. He's selling something she didn't even consciously realize that she wanted, and in the end she's a sucker for it. Some guys get very good at this because they practice deception from an early age with girls. It's up to women to see these men for who they are and to look the other way when they pour on the insincere charm.
Women need to realize that the adage 'all that glitters is not gold' applies to men as well as minerals.

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God Is a Woman: Dating Disasters Review

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(More customer reviews)(Addendum: since writing this review, this book has received a raving review from the Mystery Forum, the best known pick up artists out there. The review came from the head of the forum himself.) This book is causing quite a stir on Amazon as readers give it Kudos everywhere. People are recommending it in reviews of all sorts of other books; like humor books, chick lit books, and pick up guides for guys. A few people who love the other books attack the recommendations as spam. Well, I'm here to set the record straight. After reading this book, I know it's not spam; it's people recommending a fantastic book. "God is a Woman: Dating Disasters" is better than all the books were people have mentioned it. The book is very, very, cleverly setup. Chick lit sucks; most of the books don't offer any real advice and just reinforce the women's behavior that hasn't been working in the first place. Pick up guides for guys are even worse. All the authors do is brag in stories about how great they are at picking up women. Read the reviews that praise those books; they all start the same "So-and-so is my god! He's so awesome!" There's no real advice in the books. ("Mystery Method" is an exception but I don't find much of it to be useful for the women I want to meet.) The guys that need the advice walk away thinking "I could never do that. I could never say that to a woman." So reading the book was pointless.

There are some reviews here that knock this book for not having stories about long-term relationships, saying that's because the author has no substance. Those readers completely missed the point of this book, let alone the title. It's not about successful relationships; it's about disasters, failures, and blunders. It's setup where Ian uses his screwups to let us know we can all be successful. You don't feel that he is some god with inexplicable abilities to meet women; you feel that he is just like you, someone who went thru the same errors in dating but figured it all out, as he tells you exactly what he figured out. He has long-term relationships "but they don't belong in this book since they were successful." He has far more substance than most guys, turning down advances from many women "because I hate that feeling of just wanting them immediately gone when it's over and would rather be with someone I want to stay and wrap my arms around." He alludes to having successful long-term relationships.

Ian's take on flirting is a great example of dozens and dozens in this book. "Flirting is key to successful dating and picking up women...I used to suck at flirting." He goes on to describe how he got good and tells guys how they can practice flirting and get good at it. He says that all of his long, successful relationships started with conversations that contained mostly flirting thru the initial meeting and the entire first date. Talking about things when you meet or on a first date like what you do or how many siblings you have, makes things dull fast and should be "saved for phone calls between dates or future dates." So, we know Ian's had long, good relationships (all his exes and he are still good friends, how many of us can say that?) and we have a great tip about how flirting played a huge role in getting those going and a blueprint for flirting ourselves.

The whole book is like that, funny and full of insightful, fresh advice. Reading this book to read about long-term, successful relationships is like going to an Italian restaurant and then being upset because you can't order Chinese food. Books about long-term relationships don't tell you how to get in them, how to date, or how to meet people. Again, they are pointless. Ian tells you how he's used his advice to get a date, get laid, or date someone, but he doesn't get into great detail about those successful stories because that's not the point of the book! DAH! He says that in the opening, which you can read here on Amazon by clicking "More Editorial Reviews." You walk away from this book feeling like "Hey, I can do this! He's been in far worse, more embarrassing situations than me and he makes it work now. So can I!"

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