Blythe Roberson

A funny book about modern romance, dating, and overthrowing the patriarchy. This book gave me an excuse to examine some of my assumptions about boy bands, chick lit, and the beauty industry. As a not overly-feminine person, I've long looked down with librarian-style superiority on some of what I considered "frivolous" pursuits. But are they? And how much of my opinion is informed by toxic messaging from my culture? Why do crushes, rom-coms, and romance novels embarrass me? Why should I be show more ashamed of my feelings?

A funny book that made me laugh out loud a few times and snort quietly to myself a lot. show less

This trip memoir is an honest blend of humor mixed with deep thoughts, and I kind of loved it all. The author visits a lot of national parks spending time at each completing a Junior Ranger booklet to get a Junior Ranger badge, and her conversations with various rangers are gold. She has some great insights throughout her travels, and her writing voice was wonderful; I really enjoyed sharing in her journey. She didn't even get as far as she originally wanted, so I'd read another book by her show more about even more parks if she wanted to write it. show less

When an author is also a comedian, you can expect a lot of quotable lines. Like the title, although perhaps it's not as good as her original choice: "Who Cares If He's Not That Into You, Trump Is President, Jesus Christ!" Roberson, who is a writer for Stephen Colbert's show, actually does enjoy smooching and hanging out with men; and, as a white cis woman, she's quick to acknowledge her privilege. The book started slowly for me but by the end I was resolved to memorize entire pages. Thus, show more the many truisms I delightedly share:

"Women are socialized to pay attention to and to cater to people's emotions in a way that men are not."

"I now know that true chillness can come from being do demoralized by American politics that you cannot care about men."

"Men generally do not want to investigate subtle emotional meltdowns. When you show any kind of negative feelings to them, they often just, like, ignore it until it goes away."

"The idea that talking about love is frivolous is only applied to women. When men do the same thing, they are "carefully observing the nuances of the human heart", and Pulitzers get thrown at them."

"Our culture tells us that a woman's "no" means "convince me"."

"In my opinion, all truly successful people have lived in a constant state of stress since about age sixteen. They find happiness not by getting rid of that stress, but by finding a way to normalize its existence, and also by moving upstate."

"Most of everything in human history was barely planned and probably a mistake anyways."

"External validation is something we are all taught to crave from a very early age, and the search for it makes up the entire personality of our current president."

"Obviously, there exist couples who have been together their entire adult lives. I would guess that those people are either very lucky, very religious, or very, very good at conflict resolution."

"I always assume people are feeling more emotions than they are. Maybe this would be solved if I listened to podcasts instead of spending my entire commute listening to Joni Mitchell and imagining all the emotions everyone I know is [NOT] feeling." show less

A collection of essays by Roberson, about dating as a feminist and a Millennial. Roberson is a researcher for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. I'm not sure exactly what I expected going into reading this book, but I came away vaguely dissatisfied. I found Roberson's authorial voice equal parts funny, irritating, and exhausting. I found myself thinking, "I'm getting too old for this." (I'm about 10 years older than Roberson, so . . . valid, I guess?) And, while I'd say I'm a feminist, I show more don't like being shouted at about feminism for the duration of an entire book. There were certainly funny and thoughtful bits, and phrases that I strongly identified with, but they were few, and the parts in between were exhausting and irritating. I wonder if I would have liked the book better if I spaced out the reading of it, but I was afraid that if I did that I would never actually finish it. So, if you're a Millennial and you enjoy reading about feminism in the context of dating, you might enjoy this book more than I did, but for me it was just okay. show less