WRAP UP: November 2014

In November I managed to read six books. Usually, I’d be pretty disappointed with myself but I’ve had a really tough month and most of the time I just wasn’t feeling up to reading (or anything else for that matter). Anyway, these are the six books I read.

I wrote reviews for three of them, which I'm pretty proud of! Click here to see my reviews of  Not That Kind of Girl, Saving Francesca and The Infinite Sea.

This month was obviously NaNoWriMo which I participated in. I’m going to do a whole separate post on my novel and my experiences this month, but I’ll give you a little spoiler now…I WON! You’ll have to wait for that post to hear anything else.

Finally, some other things that happened in November. I went on a little impromptu road trip with one of my best friends that was A LOT of fun (and involved far too much cookie dough), and I met up with the lovely Ebony for dinner and *drum roll* an Amie Kaufman/Jay Kristoff signing. The signing was great and Amie is really lovely but…Ebony and I met ELLIE MARNEY. I cannot even begin to describe how excited Ebony and I were when we saw her there, we got our books signed (yes, we took them with us) and everything!

Anyway, that was November! Thank you all for reading. I hope you had great Novembers :)

REVIEW: Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham

Title: Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"
Author: Lena Dunham

Genre: Humor, Autobiography.

Publication Date: September 30th 2014

Publisher: Random House

Format: E-Book

Pages: 256

Rating: 3/5

"There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told," writes Lena Dunham, and it certainly takes guts to share the stories that make up her first book, Not That Kind of Girl. These are stories about getting your butt touched by your boss, about friendship and dieting (kind of) and having two existential crises before the age of 20. Stories about travel, both successful and less so, and about having the kind of sex where you feel like keeping your sneakers on in case you have to run away during the act. Stories about proving yourself to a room of 50-year-old men in Hollywood and showing up to "an outlandishly high-fashion event with the crustiest red nose you ever saw." Fearless, smart, and as heartbreakingly honest as ever, Not That Kind of Girl establishes Lena Dunham as more than a hugely talented director, actress and producer-it announces her as a fresh and vibrant new literary voice.

My knowledge of Lena Dunham before I picked up this book was pretty limited – I knew she was the creator/writer/star of Girls and that was about it. Despite that, I picked this up because I’d heard so good things about it and I have this new obsession about trying books that are normally out of my comfort zone. I enjoyed reading it for the most part.

I personally found it funny. Admittedly, there wasn’t a lot I could relate too, but there were still things I found funny even though I’d never experienced something like that. It was also reasonably quick and easy to get through – it didn’t require a lot of thought so I could read it late at night when I was starting to get a little tired.

There were some things I didn’t like. I found it kind of hard to follow at some points – I would get confused with people in the story. The biggest thing was the timeline – there wasn’t really one at all, the entire story was just all over the place. I never realised how much I appreciated strict linear timelines until now. There were also a few parts that I just found completely unnecessary or just plain weird.

This might sound strange, but I don’t know if it’s a book I would recommend. Sure, I enjoyed it but I think you need to be in a particular mood to read something like this.