Jessica Dorfman Jones

Note: I've received this ARC in free eBook form from NetGalley. This book will be published on 17 July 2012 for your edited reading pleasure.

First Impression: Truly irks me when an author starts a book with the word 'And'. *eyes book suspiciously*

It also. Really is bothersome. When an author seems completely enthralled with. Short. Sentences. To make a point. In every paragraph. Like. Ms. Jones does. *pulls out eraser to fix*

Second impression: Halfway through the book and it's so blasé that I keep refreshing the Goodreads homepage in hopes to find a more exciting thing to read. There is a chapter in which she says the phrase, "Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll" so many times, that she eventually just abbreviates it as, "S, D, and R 'n' R. She starts the paragraph out with a lowercase word "sex"; which I thought was just an error of the ARC but she goes on to say that 'sex' is different from 'Sex' and chooses the grammatically incorrect fashion to do so.


Final Impression: In the end, The author learns nothing, despite saying she does. She never has to own up to what she has done - in any real capacity. She even says that her regret was that she had tried to turn something "fun and glamorous" into a "long-term affair". Hey lady, I'm pretty sure the affair, of any length, was the problem.

The man she affaired-it-up with was playing in a band called "Love Craft" when she met him. She states that she would later find out that Love Craft was a reference to a sci-fi author and it was almost "too nerdy" for her to even keep talking to the man. How dare she insult H.P. Lovecraft!

She is a very smart woman, that much is very clear. Her vocabulary was diverse without seeming forced and she had a few moments of almost making me chuckle. It bothered me that she stated, "under circumstances that are too bizarre to bother getting into.." - if you cannot include a wacky, bizarre story in your memoir, where exactly does it belong?

Overall, this book was D-List. If someone offers you a free copy, I'd double-check to make sure they didn't have anything else to offer first before agreeing to take this one.… (más)

I really enjoyed this book, but that's likely because I have been dealing with a situation in my own life that in many ways mirrored what the author was experiencing. In this book the author relates the story of how she came to realize that once she had the life she thought she always wanted, she realized that she wasn't happy and wanted something more or different. At the beginning, she is working at a failing internet start up and married to her college sweetheart who is kind and loving but also in many ways completely emotionally disconnected from the marriage. When the author begins taking guitar lessons she starts an affair with the teacher, who is a walking '70s flashback complete with tight pants, a band and a raging cocaine problem. In addition to the affair, the author, who soon loses her job after the company she works for goes under, explores the lifestyle that goes with the man by forming her own band, dressing in various combinations of leather and experimenting with various substances. My own experience was not nearly as extreme as the author's, but I can identify with the feeling of being in a safe, loving relationship that ultimately just doesn't feel right anymore. Because of this, I appreciated the pages and pages of the author dithering about what decisions she should make in her life. However, I could see that if someone was not in the same place emotionally the endless self-analysis could get tiresome. One thing I really enjoyed about this book was the author's willingness to be unlikable. At times she treats her husband terribly and she doesn't shy away from acknowledging the fact that she was the bad guy. I liked that she didn't try to smooth her edges or shy away from the fact that many of her actions were selfish in that she was seeking the path that would make her happy.… (más)

This was a quirky, tongue-in-cheek "guidebook" on how to get away with a series of different cheats (and how to catch others who are trying to do the same), but it's a one trick pony which gets tiring. Each chapter is structured exactly the same way which should give a nice consistency, but it just accelerated the monotony.

In fairness, I did find the book funny, and in an odd way, I found some interesting factoids contained within it. My biggest problem with the book is that it doesn't know it's audience. This book contains chapters on "how to stay home from school" and "how to cheat on a test" interspersed with chapters on how to conduct a marital affair and how to cheat on your taxes. I was actually listening to this book on audio with my 12 year old daughter (she completely gets this kind of humor), and I had to fast forward through some of the racier chapters, and that simply doesn't make sense. 80% of the book is perfect for a teen market because there is some great humor in it, and it's all satire, so no harm/no foul. But when you include a chapter on how to fake an orgasm (yes, that is a chapter), you've lost all mareketability to the younger reader.

If you come across a copy, it may give you a chuckle if you give it a quick skim, but not worthy of a dedicated read… (más)