UK Literary Luvvies #2 Vital reading

Status
Thread locked. We start a new thread when they have over 1000 posts, click the blue button to see all threads for this topic and find the latest open thread.
1 Sort by date Sort by reaction score 2
Read Stacey Duguid’s book - it’s obvs no literary masterpiece but an entertaining read with plenty of humour and honesty and an insider view of the fashion / media world.
She’s clearly been reckless and stupid with money throughout her life but she owns it and it’s more fun to read about her raucous drug-fuelled midweek antics and how she has scraped by financially at times, than privileged Dolly et all trying to ham up they were once a wild child.
 
garfield123 said:
Read Stacey Duguid’s book - it’s obvs no literary masterpiece but an entertaining read with plenty of humour and honesty and an insider view of the fashion / media world.
She’s clearly been reckless and stupid with money throughout her life but she owns it and it’s more fun to read about her raucous drug-fuelled midweek antics and how she has scraped by financially at times, than privileged Dolly et all trying to ham up they were once a wild child.
Click to expand...
Now come ion, Dolly once had to borrow money to make rent you know.
 
garfield123 said:
Read Stacey Duguid’s book - it’s obvs no literary masterpiece but an entertaining read with plenty of humour and honesty and an insider view of the fashion / media world.
She’s clearly been reckless and stupid with money throughout her life but she owns it and it’s more fun to read about her raucous drug-fuelled midweek antics and how she has scraped by financially at times, than privileged Dolly et all trying to ham up they were once a wild child.
Click to expand...
I find her frustrating but I’m also rooting for her!
 
garfield123 said:
Read Stacey Duguid’s book - it’s obvs no literary masterpiece but an entertaining read with plenty of humour and honesty and an insider view of the fashion / media world.
She’s clearly been reckless and stupid with money throughout her life but she owns it and it’s more fun to read about her raucous drug-fuelled midweek antics and how she has scraped by financially at times, than privileged Dolly et all trying to ham up they were once a wild child.
Click to expand...
I'm reading this and enjoying it. It has the air of a book cobbled together for a publisher, but is an easy read and interesting about eg the fashion week stuff too. And it's very honest. I still can't get my head around wanting expensive labels so much you get into debt, but that's what's interesting - we are all different!
 
SharkAttack said:
I'm reading this and enjoying it. It has the air of a book cobbled together for a publisher, but is an easy read and interesting about eg the fashion week stuff too. And it's very honest. I still can't get my head around wanting expensive labels so much you get into debt, but that's what's interesting - we are all different!
Click to expand...
Yes it’s a bit rushed / cobbled at points and I’m not sure it had time for many rounds of edits… also not entirely sure how she got out of debt given how deep she got, even corporate fashion roles don’t thattt highly, I don’t think.
 
It’s that time of year where I need to start the no buy list 🙄 It’s my birthday just before Christmas so a double whammy of risk
 

Attachments

  • IMG_9656.jpeg
    IMG_9656.jpeg
    90.2 KB · Views: 59
Binnsy86 said:
I do quite want to read the book next to Dolly’s though 😂 A “no buy” list is a great idea!
Click to expand...
Oh yeah I do want to read the glossier one :)
---
I don’t know, I’ll read Dolly’s but I just don’t want it as a birthday or Christmas gift as I won’t read it again
 
I listened to Dolly’s new book (free on Spotify for those who have premium!) and finished today. I hated Ghosts but thought this was significantly better. Nothing life changing but enjoyable. Do think the ex-girlfriend character was basically a Dolly self-insert though.
 
4dominoes said:
I listened to Dolly’s new book (free on Spotify for those who have premium!) and finished today. I hated Ghosts but thought this was significantly better. Nothing life changing but enjoyable. Do think the ex-girlfriend character was basically a Dolly self-insert though.
Click to expand...
Free on Spotify?! That’s a kiss of death
Predictable about the ex girlfriend, interesting the book was better than Ghosts
---
I’d quite like Dolly to write about a person who isn’t just like her. A 50 year old single grandma living on an estate or something. No comments about that phrasing it was just an example 😆 Trouble is I don’t think she has the empathy
 
soph30 said:
Free on Spotify?! That’s a kiss of death
Predictable about the ex girlfriend, interesting the book was better than Ghosts
---
I’d quite like Dolly to write about a person who isn’t just like her. A 50 year old single grandma living on an estate or something. No comments about that phrasing it was just an example 😆 Trouble is I don’t think she has the empathy
Click to expand...
The Spotify thing is a new feature, similar to Audible’s offering. They have a great selection. I wouldn’t have paid for it so was pleased to see it on there.
 
soph30 said:
Free on Spotify?! That’s a kiss of death
Predictable about the ex girlfriend, interesting the book was better than Ghosts
---
I’d quite like Dolly to write about a person who isn’t just like her. A 50 year old single grandma living on an estate or something. No comments about that phrasing it was just an example 😆 Trouble is I don’t think she has the empathy
Click to expand...

I thought you wanted her to write about someone unlike herself?
 
Reading Dolly's book and it's soooo painfully average. She's a smart woman, I don't know why she seems to dumb herself down into the supermarket chick-lit category that's been done a million times before. Maybe she's better suited to feature-writing or non-fiction but it just feels like she could do so much better.
 
queenamber said:
Reading Dolly's book and it's soooo painfully average. She's a smart woman, I don't know why she seems to dumb herself down into the supermarket chick-lit category that's been done a million times before. Maybe she's better suited to feature-writing or non-fiction but it just feels like she could do so much better.
Click to expand...
She's smart, but she has no interests other than herself and sex/romance so she can't really write about any other topics 😂

Doesn't she like the past/sixties? Why not write a book set in those times?
 
queenamber said:
Would love to see that. I think she or her publisher has pigeon-holed her into the whole "modern dating and relationships" category and it's so overdone now.
Click to expand...
Especially as she's kind of aging out of what's cool, fresh and modern now being in her mid thirties- like me haha! The sleek 20 year old living in a cool Camden flat is probably posting nudes to avatars on TikTok these days 😂 Dolly does write well about the very particular experience of being a millennial woman which makes me hope she sticks around, she's kind of a comfort. She doesn't care about ageing though, she wants to be Nora Ephron ;)
 
queenamber said:
Reading Dolly's book and it's soooo painfully average. She's a smart woman, I don't know why she seems to dumb herself down into the supermarket chick-lit category that's been done a million times before. Maybe she's better suited to feature-writing or non-fiction but it just feels like she could do so much better.
Click to expand...
Panda gets on my tits but at least she’s wise enough to realise that not everyone can write fiction. Dolly needs to learn this, too.

I probably won’t read this one after struggling through Ghosts. From the opening hook of being named after George Michael and playing The Edge of Heaven every year on her birthday I could barely read for rolling my eyes. It was SO contrived.

ETA: spelling
 
There’s a passage that I’ve seen in a few places as if it’s the apex of the book/ modern literature in general - “has generally quite 90s ideas of what’s glamorous, like cocktails or spending £20 on a plate of tagliatelle in a little place” or something like that, and it just makes no sense to me. What is she on about? I haven’t quoted it exactly because I can’t be bothered to google it but the syntax of the sentence doesn’t work just like the sentiment doesn’t. Unless I’m missing something
 
I’m listening to it on audiobook at the moment which always seems to me a strange way to “read” a book because you can’t really hop back and read over what you just read if you zoned out for a second.

Anyway I did quite enjoy the beginning as the narrator’s voice really grew on me but now it’s not capturing me. I’m about a third in I reckon. It’s kind of funny in places but I’m not too sure I’m that excited about what’s happening or what’s going to unfold.
 
Status
Thread locked. We start a new thread when they have over 1000 posts, click the blue button to see all threads for this topic and find the latest open thread.
Back
Top