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Dana Schwartz examines her twenties with brutally honest humor using a parody style of the internet quiz. She shares relatable stories about disordered eating, dating the wrong men, mediocre dates, and sexual assault. Her self awareness, and ability to turn life’s tragedies into comedy is what made this a 5 Star memoir. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy of this ebook.
Personality Tests & Modern FeminismIt's known by now that I'm a fan of memoirs, given that I'm easily swept up in the juicy secrets of someone’s thoughts and secrets without having to reciprocate; it's bliss for my nosy self. With this new release part-memoir, part-VERY long personality test, Choose Your Own Disaster is a manifesto about the millennial experience and modern feminism and how the easy advice of “you can be anything you want!” is actually pretty fucking difficult when there
Not read this, but giving it a five star rating to balance out the one star rating by another bloke who hasn't read it. Balance is maintained.Edit: Noooo! Don't make this the top liked review!!! I'M SO SORRY DANA!
I devoured this in one weekend. Dana's voice sucks you in, her stories are alternately laugh-out-loud funny and smartly introspective, and you won't be able to put this one down. I'd recommend this to anyone who loves GIRLS, BuzzFeed quizzes, or Dana's Twitter.
This book is damn close to being in my 20-or-30-something-female-required-reading category. Though some topics are uncomfortable (BDSM, eating disorders, infidelity), I cringed because I could identify with the desperation at hand. Real, important stories.
FULL REVIEW TO COME
One of the best memoirs I've read in years. I laughed all the way though and cried at the end. Such a smart book.
I feel like this book was tailor-made for me (probably because it's a choose your own adventure disaster book). I've gone through the eating disorders, the depression and loneliness, the anxiety, the insecurities, the mistakes with not good guys, and the overpowering guilt after. Dana did a great job of bringing alllll those feelings back (unfortunately?).Choose Your Own Disaster is really clever. It gets real without being too much of a downer. And, if you find yourself drawing some similaritie...
2 stars feels low but I can't quite bring myself to go 3 stars (so 2.5?). I love funny women memiors, so I was really looking forward to this, but I just didn't find it that humorous/funny. Also I didn't know much about Dana Schwartz going into the book (true of many of the funny lady memiors I've read and enjoyed) so I didn't realize how young she was. It read very young to me (so perhaps I'm just a 36-year-old curmudgeon).
My love of personality tests knows no bounds (it was actually my top #1 reason for deciding to get a degree in psychology ngl) so naturally this format made me go !!!!!!!! + I am also very much of a sucker for reading relatable stories about twenty-something trainwrecks of women, so in theory, this was supposed to be 100% my kinda book except it was so damn basic..?? I mean it's not a bad book, I did have fun reading it and all, but it's just that I haven't read anything here that I haven't read...
fuck this made me cry
I originally wasn't going to read this because I'm extremely jealous of Dana's cool life and thought it would just make me feel bad, but I like her twitter so much that I decided to pick it up and I'm so glad I did. This is such a spot on and relatable account of being in your early twenties - getting stuck in self-destructive spirals, sleeping with people you know you shouldn't, occasional amazing moments of happiness where you can't believe something's worked out. I struggled with the eating d...
This book is fantastic because it is not only fun, but flawed and real. Life is sometimes a series of disasters, but that is part of the learning process. If we cannot learn through our mistakes we are doomed to repeat them, right?!?! Schwartz has created a book that is original and makes the reader feel like all the disasters in their past are more normal than not. Sometimes is takes a few times to get it right and the twists and turns in the road of life and the ones that lead us to where we a...
Choose Your Own Disaster is 250+ pages of sighing in relief that "oh, thank God, I'm not the only one who has that thought process."I've been a fan of Schwartz and her Guy In Your MFA account since my junior year of college. I was in a fairly constant back-and-forth of wondering "are we the same person?" and grumbling to myself in jealousy about how she was only a year older than me and so accomplished online (like when I was eleven and thought I was destined to be a famous child actor if Dakota...
First I'd like to discourage anyone considering getting the Kindle version. I got it and it made the format a bit annoying. After reading a few reviews here I realised I missed a few (juicy) passages that apparently provide some very welcome context. It's just confusing!About the book: I really wanted to like it, because I simply love Dana's social media presence. She's been on my feed everyday for god knows how long, so I thought this memoir was going to be an experience close to catching up wi...