Welcome to Litsy!

There were some really good essays in her and a few I didn‘t like as much. It was a super interesting look at “dead girls” in media and the trope they carry. I was on the fence about this one overall though.

The library opens again this week! We have a new main branch that I have never been to and I am so excited! Theatres are also opening this week! Eeeek! Many of these have been on my library list for years so hoping to make some quick progress. What should I start with.

Opening sentence ... “This is a book about books.” I think this is going to be a good one..👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Essays on dead girls in pop culture, revisiting noir in LA, and some memoir about the author‘s own family history. Sharp writing but some ideas felt repetitive rather than revelatory.

This book is more an ode to Didion‘s LA than a critical examination of the dead girl trope. Part personal essay, part dissertation, Bodin‘s writing is strong, but her critical analysis often felt obvious and her arguments tenuous. (My bias as a recovering academic may be showing here). This collection is at its best when Bodin probes her own privilege and use of the personal essay. At its worst, it is self-indulgent.

Not loving this so far - after reading reviews of it I was expecting that it wouldn‘t cover the “dead girl trope” as much I would want, and it doesn‘t it. But as someone from California Bolin‘s ideas, misconceptions and expectations about the place are so wrong and naive that she comes across as frankly stupid. I‘ll stick with it a bit more, but doubt I could ever recommend it to anyone.

Call me old fashioned but I think a critical essay should have a thesis. Bolin had some interesting ideas, especially in the opening essays that did focus on the Dead Girls trope but she's quite meandering. Then the piece where she jumps back and forth between Dead Girls in Nordic Noir and... her father's autism? (He claims not to remember being diagnosed and does not identify as autistic). Tried to keep going but I'm doing too much skimming.

When the author of the book of critical essays you are reading says, "I did not really pay attention or learn anything in college" and you think, man, that explains a lot about the structure (or lack thereof) of these essays... ?

You guys, I'm such a completionist but I just don't know if I can do it with this one...

Despite the title, this isn‘t really a book about dead girls. It‘s more a book about girls in pop culture, but also a book about the author‘s experiences in LA. However, even that doesn‘t seem to adequately describe this book. It‘s kind of just a collection of essays that are very loosely connected.

Full review: https://oddandbookish.wordpress.com/2019/07/21/review-dead-girls/

This book was a false advertisement for what it said it was. The first maybe 15 percent stuck somewhat to the premise of covering female tropes represented in our pop culture but then it turned into this dreadful meandering of self introspection of the author's life in LA trying to make it. I eye rolled so many times during my listen of this and am mad I wasted my time on it. Two thumbs down 👎👎
#Booked2019 A Social Media focus

Overall, a fantastic book with some great stories. Bolin is quite masterful of finding the depth and nuance in, what is to others, shallow pop culture... it‘s certainly an eye-opener and definitely a love letter to Joan Didion ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 4.5 stars because the last chapter felt out of place and dragged a bit, but the ending was lovely 💖

Didn‘t think I was starting this one today, but it kept calling to me lol 🤓🤓🤓

The Belletrist book club on Instagram put this book on my radar. I REALLY wanted to love this, but came out feeling kind of meh overall about this collection of essays. There were things that I liked, but many of the essays fell flat or rehashed things I‘ve read/watched elsewhere plenty. Ironically, the part that I related to most was not connected to the book‘s theme at all - Bolin‘s discussion of the intensity of female friendships.

“Our cultural obsession with murder stories and the criminal justice system is a prime example of the impulse to narrativize a reality that is basically unexplainable.”

an apt description of a crime writer‘s raison d‘être from one of the many interesting essays in this. im just past halfway through.

Reading this on my Kindle phone app while I treat myself to some yummy ramen for dinner #bookanddinner

Oh man, @BarkingMadRun , thank you thank you so much for this amazing #madhatterteapartyswap. I am so excited to try all these teas! And the hat is so cute!

Essays. They hit on some of my favorite things like Dead Girl Shows on tv. High recommend if you like Didion or LA or the pop culture obsession with dead girls.

I‘m really not sure how to review this essay collection. On one hand, I enjoyed reading it and most of the essays are focused on obsession and misogyny as revealed by pop culture (and Joan Didion). On the other hand, it felt like something was missing. 🤷🏼‍♀️

#ReadingUSA2019 #Idaho (author from)

#dogsofLitsy #Greta #Bindi #WeWontPoseToday

This is what I get for eating while reading.

😂

#dogsofLitsy #Bindi #OneTrackMind

I only liked about half of the essays.

I haven‘t DNF‘ed a book in a very long time but this was insufferable. The first couple of essays were pretty good - they focused on the dead girl trope in crime fiction and true crime, which was what I signed up for. Then this collection turned boring and navel-gazing real fast when it switched to being essays about the author living in L.A. and being pretentious about ~struggling~ and reading Joan Didion 🙄

This book was utterly disappointing. As I said on goodreads I should have DNF‘d this book. It‘s not even a case of disappointment because it‘s not as described. It is a self indulgent rambling collection of pointless essays. With one part of 4 essays that are somewhat ok.

A little disappointed in this one. The title is a little misleading, most of the essays are more about LA culture and Joan Didion than the dead girl trope, which is the part I was most interested in. There are some standouts though and she makes a number of interesting points. I will say if you love reading about LA and celebrity culture you will probably really enjoy this!

In RI we have an amazing, magical book van called Twenty Stories that sells books throughout the Providence area. They thoughtfully handpick 20 titles a month and pop up to sell them all over the city. It‘s basically my dream come true! @bookriot #riotgrams Day 2: Local bookstore or library

These aren‘t pop culture references I particularly care about. There are just too many other books.

If you like tv shows and books where women get murdered, you may like it more than I.

Belletrist July Pick #1

This book was so-so in my opinion. There was only about one or two essays that I liked. Of course, both of them had to do with true crime ;) if you like essay collections, this might be a good pick for you to read.

Dead Girls is a bad title, it should have been called “How I Moved to LA But it Didn‘t Make Me Happy And By the Way Here‘s Everything Joan Didion Ever Wrote.” I wanted to read about what the blurb promised: Twin Peaks, Serial, True Detective and Britney Spears. I didn‘t sign up for a self-indulgent and meandering memoir.

The library bought a book for me!! This always makes me feel so special! Anyone else? 💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻

#friyay

This is between a pick and so-so for me. I really enjoyed the first group of essays but the rest of the collection is a little too referential for me. If you‘re not as specifically well-read as the author, it can be frustrating to follow and as someone uninterested in LA and Joan Didion, the last handful of essays left me cold. Up next: The Kiss Quotient.

1. I don't watch many so probably Thor: Ragnarok
2. Escape rooms, hiking, billiards, mini golf, eating
3. Not necessarily lucky but favorite is 7.
4. This is my most recent DNF, I've never had any qualms with abandoning books. I fail to understand why so many people are resistant to it.

#friyayintro

I'm helping* Mark while he works a beer fest at the Pirate's game and enjoying this INSANELY good book about our culture and media's obsession with the dead girl trope. It's fucking awesome. READ THIS!!!

*Helping (v): sitting awkwardly alone at a super crowded beer fest reading a book while hundreds of ppl get wasted around me and my fiance is working his ass off and also fills my cup when needed aka best life 📚🍺

I loved the essay collection Dead Girls by Alice Bolin. She expertly critiques the crime drama genre (mainly focusing on Twin Peaks and True Detective, but applicable to shows like The Killing). She also discusses finding herself in LA, understanding her father through the crime series he reads, and expertly critiques B-list horror films, Shirley Jackson and Octavia Butler. Fans of literary and pop-culture criticism take note!

Library hold happiness!

Pick mostly for the first few essays, which are brilliant; as the book goes on they get tedious and navel gazing.

📚📬💕

This essay collection is my favorite summer read!!! #nonfiction #leadingladies #thelibrarianssuggest #recommendation #girlgang #awakening #readmore #bookworm #girlboss #bookstagram #bookshelf #librarian #whatareyoureading

These are all the books I got on Prime Day!! Got some great ones... can‘t wait till next year!! 🤩🤩🤩🤩 #bookmail #bookhaul #primeday

Wut. The nicest possible way to interpret this sentence is that she meant Beloved and We Have Always Lived in a Castle should be celebrated outside of school required reading but what a bitchy way to say it (if that's even the case -- I find myself nitpicking now so I'm tryyyyying to find a new perspective but I'm still annoyed.)

😑 it doesn't say much for this collection when I can't even get into an essay examining Beloved, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and White is for Witching, all three of which are 5* books for me. I think this author was probably someone described as 'precocious' a lot as a child.

Meh this is getting more disjointed the further in I get anf further off the ostensible topic. Hoping it gets back on track after the LA section 😴. Deciding whether to send it back to the stack and pick it up again in the future or just press on now.

... having birthday money at all is a very different "survival" mode than I knew at 25 ?.

Enjoyed her thoughtful analysis. I went to college (Go Cougs) just on the other side of the state line from where she grew up (Go Vandals), so I appreciated the references to Inland Northwest(even though many are tough to learn about). Certainly worth reading!

#HeatOfJuly #CaliforniaGurls

I just reviewed the tagged book-essays about America's obsession with dead women in literature & pop culture & also about the author's move to L.A. & experiences there. Bolin frequently mentions California icon, author Joan Didion & her books, novels & essays about California & Los Angeles. Bolin also notes the main reason she moved in with her second L.A. roommate was because she had a cat named after Didion.😽

These essays are interesting but seem a little haphazard.

I didn't love every essay in this debut non-fiction collection that looks at our pop culture obsession with young women dead or in peril through feminist glasses as well as recounts the author's young adulthood & move to L.A.--but overall an interesting & engaging book to read at your indie ☕️house.

Paired with Deviled Eggs with Smoked Salmon for no great symbolic reason I'm afraid-just what I wanted to eat/make. Book tour review/recipe link👇🏻

Lovin‘ my feminist #bookhookup from the #theStrand #strandbooks. Book subscriptions are the best💕

Ooh haven't read any Flynn except a novella but that is dead on. I've heard the basic sentiment countless times in conversation about sexual violence when a guy inevitably derails the main topic by bringing up the specter of false accusations.