Since I didn't watch Parks and Rec, why am I reading books by the cast? No one knows. But Modern Romance is really interesting and has nothing to do with the show. Aziz Ansari teams up with sociologists to look at how people date now, with all the technological and cultural changes. Since I've been married for 8 years, online dating wasn't a big thing for me, but it has been for some of my friends and I think it is fascinating.
He also talks about the abundance of choices that are available to us now (in all aspects of life, not just dating) and how that can be paralyzing as we aren't happy unless we find the BEST option, which may not even exist. I absolutely relate to this. Especially when trying to figure out what things to buy for a baby. How many hours did we spend researching car seats or cribs? When they all meet the same safety regulations and are pretty much the same.
Back to dating, Ansari met with people in a few different cities and a few different countries to see how dating works and how technology is used. One stop was Wichita, Kansas (my hometown is apparently one of the worst places to date) and now I'm curious if he talked to anyone I knew. It's not likely, but not impossible. And I can now blame location on the fact that I didn't have any boyfriends until I moved away. It also may have had something to do with the fact that I was in high school and taller than almost every boy. Or maybe that I'm kind of weird. Impossible to know for sure. Blame Wichita!
Reading this got me thinking about how much technology has changed just since I first had crushes on boys, and how my generation has navigated all the new ways to communicate.From email to chatrooms to AIM to MySpace and beyond. I might just have to write another post spilling all my thoughts about that. I'll be like "back in my day, we didn't have fancy emojis! We had to use punctuation to make sideways faces and no one knew what any of them really meant! And we had to say I <3U while walking barefoot through the snow uphill both ways holding nothing but a baked potato to keep our hands warm!"
What are we even talking about anymore? Right, this book was cool. I think Ansari should do more books like this.
Reading this got me thinking about how much technology has changed just since I first had crushes on boys, and how my generation has navigated all the new ways to communicate.From email to chatrooms to AIM to MySpace and beyond. I might just have to write another post spilling all my thoughts about that. I'll be like "back in my day, we didn't have fancy emojis! We had to use punctuation to make sideways faces and no one knew what any of them really meant! And we had to say I <3U while walking barefoot through the snow uphill both ways holding nothing but a baked potato to keep our hands warm!"
What are we even talking about anymore? Right, this book was cool. I think Ansari should do more books like this.
I find Ansari's character likable enough on the show, but I've heard that his stand-up is really crude and vulgar (I'm not really into that). On a scale of G to NC-17 (or XXX), how would you rate this book?
ReplyDeleteOooh, I really liked your review of this book, Andi! I love Aziz Ansari and I'm eager to read this! I wonder if there's an audiobook version. I'll need to look it up! :)
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