Hungry Heart

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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I'm not the biggest Jennifer Weiner fan in the world, nor am I in her target demographic in any way, shape, or form – but I've enjoyed (in some cases more) those books of hers that I've read. So I figured there was a better than even chance that I'd appreciate this collection of essays about her life, career, love life, dogs, social media and more. It's also read by Weiner herself, which is almost always a winning characteristic for me.

Sadly, this audiobook was better in theory than it was in real life.

There's a scene in the last season of Gilmore Girls where Logan points out to Rory that despite her prejudices, attitudes and belief, she's actually part of the same privileged class that he is – which she doesn't take too well (understandably). I kept thinking about that as I listened to some of Weiner's tales of woe about her childhood and college life. I'm not saying that she didn't have problems in her childhood, that she didn't have trials that no one should have to go through, or overcome a lot in her professional life. But man...the self-pity was overblown – she got an Ivy League education, came out of it with less debt than many people I know who went to less prestigious schools, took a high school trip to Israel, and a largely pleasant childhood.

It doesn't get much better when she starts talking about her adult life, either. She assumes sexism – and has faced, continues to face, and will probably face a good deal of it in the future – but seems to have some fairly strong gender biases herself. She will frequently say something like “As a woman, I know I'm supposed to be X in this situation.” Almost every time she said something like that I thought, actually a man in the same situation would be expected to behave the same way – it may not be honest, healthy, or “authentic” in the contemporary understanding – but it's what how an adult person in polite Western culture should act.

Oddly, for someone who lamented her own inability to be a stay-at-home mom/writer, the scorn she displays for stay-at-home moms later in the book seems out of character. Actually, she is dismissive of people with other beliefs and convictions than hers. I'm not suggesting for a moment that she shouldn't be an opinionated person (of any sex), but it's hard to respect anyone who can't reason with their opponents with out dismissing or vilifying them.

I actually had a few more things in my notes along those things, but seeing this on the screen makes me want to stop before this becomes a diatribe against the book. Because, believe it or not, I enjoyed this book – when she tells a narrative or goes for a laugh, I really got into the book and wanted to hear more. It's when she gets on her soapbox or when she doles out advice that wouldn't work for women less-well-off than she is, I couldn't enjoy it.

If anything, this book makes me like her fiction more – because the flawed people she writes about are a lot more relatable than she presents herself as. But listening (I think reading would be better – see below) to Weiner describe her problems with overeating, or the journey to get her first book published (and the real life experiences that shaped the book), her mother's reactions to her book tours, getting the movie In Her Shoes made, stories about her dogs, and so on – man, I really liked that and would've gladly consumed more of that kind of thing.

As an audiobook, this was a disappointment. I found the little sound effect/chime thing between chapters grating. Weiner's reading was too slow and her cadence demonstrates that she reads a lot to her kids. Which would be fine if the prose matched, but it didn't.

I can't rate this too low – it was well-written I laughed, I felt for her and some of the other people she talked about in a way that I can't justify rating below a 3. But man, I want to.

I enjoyed this audiobook overall – I like her honesty, I like her books, I like her willingness to fight for equal treatment of women's literature. I enjoyed hearing about her upbringing. But at least listening on audible I felt the book shifted back and forth in time too much – perhaps it would feel less jarring if I was reading a hard copy and could thumb back and forth as needed to be sure I'm understanding the context. I felt that sometimes I'd be listening to a story of her when she had only her oldest daughter, then she had her second daughter, and then later again I'm listening to a section where only her oldest daughter has been born. I did enjoy hearing it read in her voice but I think for this one I'd recommend reading it vs listening.