All the Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen to Be Famous Strangers
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.95 (773 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1455565865 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-05-18 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Mixing Didion's affected cool with moments of giddy celebrity worship, Massey examines the lives of the women who reflect our greatest aspirations and darkest fears back onto us. These reflections aim to reimagine these women's legacies, and in the process, teach us new ways of forgiving ourselves.. "Alana Massey's prose is to brutal honesty what a mandolin is to a butter knife: she's sharper; she slices thinner; she shows the cross-section of a truth so deftly--so powerfully and cannily--it's hard to look away, and hard not to feel that something has shifted in you for having read her."--Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy ExamsFrom columnist and critic Alana Massey, a collection of essays examining the intersection of the personal with pop culture through the lives of pivotal female figures--from Sylvia Plath to Britney Spears--in the spirit of Chuck Klosterman, with the heart of a true fan. A cultural critique and a finely wrought fan letter, interwoven with stories that are achingly personal, ALL THE LIVES I WANT is also an exploration of mental illness, the sex industry, and the dangers of loving too hard. But it is, above all, a paean to the celebrities who have shaped a generation of women--from Scarlett Johansson to Amber Rose, Lil' Kim, Anjelica Huston, Lana Del Rey, Anna Nicole Smith and many more. These essays ar
Massey counts authors like Leslie Jamison, Molly Crabapple, Heather Havrilesky, and Rebecca Traister as admirers of her writing, in addition to her sizeable Twitter following that has tripled in size each of the last two years. . Signed with Grand Central Publishing since June of 2015, Alana Massey is a writer whose work covers culture, labor, identity, and mortality. Massey's essays, criticism, reviews, and reporting appear regularly in publications like The Guardian, New
As she writes her own feminist canon, she insists on the veracity and value of her own presence and voice: Courtney Love and the Olsen twins and Britney Spears, imperfect and compelling, belong in books-which means that Alana Massey does, too."New Republic"Massey has a seemingly uncanny ability to perceive things in a way that goes far beyond what's visible on the surface, and then, through her writing, transform the way others see them as well, revealing truths and offering insights not only into the lives of others but also, of course, about our own."Nylon"For those who have fantasized about being BFFs with all their favorite celebrities,
This book inspired me to pursue the Unlikeable Woman archetype with a new and unprecedented fervor and has left me with a deligh Alana Massey waxes poetic about Anna Nicole Smith which more people need to be doing. This book inspired me to pursue the Unlikeable Woman archetype with a new and unprecedented fervor and has left me with a delightfully feminist determination to live brazenly and to care less for the #NotAllMen who have disappointed womankind again and again.It makes me wish snorting lines of glitter was a thing I could do to take me and my friends to that fictitious island in Wonder Woman where we practice archery and glide along the face of a mountain without fearing sexual harassment.Cannot wait to read more from her.. Buy this book. Buy this book for your friends. Buy this book for a stranger. Megan I have read this book twice now and I will probably read it again after I write this review. Alana is a clever and insightful writer who beautifully blends together high and low-brow in a way I've never seen before. It is refreshing, honest, and perfectly emotional. Whether or not you consider yourself a person who cares deeply about pop culture, you'll find meaning in these essays as Alana dissects what these women mean to our culture and how our culture has treated them.. LESReader said Cultural criticism worth your time.. Tender and ferocious in equal measure, All the Lives I Want offers a host of new perspectives on our cultural treatment of famous women, and demonstrates new, more gentle ways of approaching them and ourselves. For the weight of the topics, Massey's signature humor shines through, making the book feel more like a conversation than a lecture.