You're Not Much Use To Anyone (2014) - Plot & Excerpts
I've never read David Shapiro's blog, I rarely read Pitchfork Reviews, and I'm not a huge Belle and Sebastian fan. Had I been, I think I would have rated this book higher. As it was, however, I enjoyed it. It was a pretty fast read, and was humorous at times. I couldn't tell if David has Aspergers, as other people guessed he had, or if he was just playing that up for humor, but I enjoyed his writing style. The name of this book comes from a Belle and Sebastian song, which seems to be David's favorite band. David Shapiro is the pen-name for an unknown blogger in New York that became popular when he started a Tumblr writing reviews about the music reviews put out by Pitchfork Reviews. This book is semi-autobiographical, but I would imagine it's similar to David's blog (which, again, I haven't read, so I probably don't have the right to guess that, but I'm guessing that anyway).. At any rate, I would guess that this book is similar to his blog in the way that I'm sure you're not quite sure what's real or made up for his blog, since no one even knows David's real name. It could be 99% real, or it could be mostly an act and primarily made up. Either way, an interesting read. The book felt more like a memoir, despite the fact that the author says it's fiction and only semi-autobiographical, and tells the story of how a guy named David decides to start writing a blog, and how the blog becomes more popular. He has just graduated college and is still figuring out what he wants to do, so we follow him for about a year while he starts a blog, builds up his fan base, deals with a boring, menial job, and hangs out with friends and girlfriends. The book was funny, although not much seemed to happen. I liked the style and somewhat stream-of-consciousness-like voice that David writes in. This was an amusing read that went by pretty fast. I found it humorous at times, and liked to read it in little bits here and there, because it had a blog-like vibe. Not a lot of substance, but entertaining, so I would rate it 3 to 3 1/2 stars. David Shapiro writes like the "voice of our generation" that other generations would ascribe to my generation.You're Not Much Use to Anyone is Shapiro's somewhat fictional memoir. He's the guy behind Pitchfork Reviews Reviews, and I like him (his character?) about as much as he seems to like himself, which is enough but not very much. He's an awkward person (character?) who writes awkwardly, but not in an entertaining or unique way—it's self-deprecating and often feels uninspired. I'm certainly saying more about myself than David Shapiro when I say that his writing evokes a type of "my-kid-could-paint-that" reaction in me: This is a story, certainly, but I don't know why it's a special story.And (here comes the bitchy feminist part of my review) I don't know why voices like David Shapiro's need to be amplified. He's an upper-class college graduate living in New York on his parents' dime. Any privileged dude with his parents' credit card can crank out a few pages celebrating their own mediocrity, too—but don't we have enough of those writers already? Not that that's David Shapiro's fault, but I guess what I'm saying is, if you're supported by Mom, Dad, and The Patriarchy and you have the opportunity to write a book, at least make it good. That said, I give it two stars because it has funny moments and I kept reading it until the end—partially because it's a short read, but also because I wanted to know where Shapiro was going to end up. The story is interesting sometimes, largely because Shapiro can be so irritating. When I'm not feeling the books I'm reading, I evaluate my sunk costs about halfway through. I pressed on for YNMUTA, so that's on me.By the way, I starting reading this book because it was free, because I forgot to unsubscribe from my free monthlong trial of Kindle Unlimited. Don't get Kindle Unlimited.
What do You think about You're Not Much Use To Anyone (2014)?
Well written page turner ( initial slow start ) yet fantastic
—lonees
Ok, nothing great but it kept my interest and moved quickly
—silvermoon
Generational defining. Eye opening and poignant.
—mann
