Lena Dunham

Was ich im Leben so gelernt habe

Not That Kind of Girl

The creator and star of HBO's Girls documents her coming-of-age in and out of the spotlight, recounting her experiences with everything from dieting and embarrassing sex to dirty old men and performing in less-than-ideal conditions. 250,000 first printing.

A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"

Ashley shackelford

I really didn't think this was bad. At the beginning of the book I really enjoyed it. But as it went on I was unable to grasp how the author was jumping from topic to topic or story to story. I am sure to her it made sense, but to me not at all. I also was not able to connect to her character through the book. (This is nothing how I grew up) But I feel like I should have been able to connect to the character in some way. I don't know what it was about this (the writing, the somewhat absurdity of some of the stories, i just don't know. 
I have been interested in watching her TV show, after this I'm hoping that is much better than this book.

Katherine 

just like girls 

if you have watched any of Lena Dunham's other work, such as Tiny Furniture or Girls--then don't bother with this book. A frustrating number of the stories in her book had already been brought to life through the movie/show.

Joana da Silva

I like Lena Dunham. To be fair, I really like what she represents - achieving great things with her writing in her 20's. Most of all, I like that because it means that it's possible, you can succeed at a young age, which is something I strive to do myself. 
I read this book and binge-watched Girls at the same time (I watched seasons 3 to 6 in one weekend). I really wanted to read this book when it came out and I'm glad I didn't because I was around 18 at the time and highly impressionable. Almost-25-year-old me is much more capable of digesting this book.
Do I relate to all her experiences? No, she was quite odd. But I do relate strongly with one of the experiences that most shaped her into the woman we know. She's an unreliable narrator (she says so herself) and it heavily shows throughout the book. It's a good collection of essays tho.

Jeannette Ordas

I had high hopes for this book, but I was disappointed. There's a lot of filler here and it was a revelation on just how much of her real life events are translated into Girls and Tiny Furniture. She doesn't really discuss feminism or her privilege, but I still liked her. Barely 3 stars.

Dana Paduraru

run away but always back to yourself
and more

Izza

Well, this was definitely an interesting read?! It's not really what I was expecting... Lena Dunham and I have absolutely nothing in common other than we're apparently both anxious messes at time, so it was pretty hard to relate to. The stories/anecdotes (because I don't think they were really essays) were pretty entertaining though and I love her sense of humour.

Jude Moon

Este libro no ha sido para mí lo relatable que puede ser cuando lo lees siendo una mujer estadounidense de unos veintitantos, pero he rescatado ciertas frases y pensamientos que me han ayudado a comprender un poco mejor cosas de mí misma. Ese tipo de cosas son las que busco en libros de este tipo. Si me encuentro a mí misma completamente, me maravilla, pero si no, si sólo es una página con la que me identifico, o simplemente descubro diferentes pensamientos de gente muy distinta a mí, me siento satisfecha. 8/10

Stephanie Honour

insustancial, insulso, insípido. vaya libro más mediocre. solo habla de las veces que ha tenido sexo con tíos y es que no hace que sigas queriendo leer, básicamente porque me importa una mierda. ohhh qué me contará a continuación?? seguro que no es otra historia sobre cómo folló con un tío random! weehe! oh espera, que sí lo es.

Rebeca Keren Nuñez

Me quede sorprendida por algunas cosas que la autora revela sobre sus experiencias y sobre sí misma y tengo que decir, que entiendo mucho más su trabajo después de esto. Es muy interesante lo biográfico del libro. Tengo que decir que es super honesto y es ágil de leer.

Sarahi Flores

Listened to the audio and I'm glad I didn't buy the book. Didn't really enjoy her story. Kinda depressing. Very depressing.

Melanie Richards

Chanel Kilian

If you aren't a fan of Girls, you will not enjoy this book. For fans, this book certainly explains many scenes in Girls as well as gives some insight into the origins of these scenes. 

This book is written as a series of nonlinear, non-chronological essays about various events in Lena Dunham's life.

Sarah Vaughan

I wanted to like this one. I really, really did. I think Lena Dunham is one of the most authentic, creative, intelligent, passionate, and endearing women in this entire world. This book didn't take away from that. And it was surprisingly well-written despite being a "celebrity memoir." Butttt...her humor is just a little too raunchy for me. Sorry Lena. Sorry Lena fans. I just couldn't wait to get through this one.

Meredith kirby

I really wanted to like this, I wanted to love it. I imagined myself falling in love with Not That Kind of Girl, just like I fell in love with Lena Dunham, sadly that didn't happen.

It was all bad, I found myself dying with laughter at some points, reading passages to my husband and getting very weird looks in return, and embarrassingly I admit that I wondering if some of the stories were taken from my own life. Those moments just weren't enough for me, they were so short lived and so sparse in the book that I generally just found myself to be bored. 

I should probably be rating this lower, but my love for Lena is making me soft. 


I still love you Lena Dunham!

""If I could take what I've learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine was worthwhile. I'm already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you, but also my future glory in having stopped you from trying an expensive juice cleanse or thinking that it was your fault when the person you are dating suddenly backs away, intimidated by the clarity of your personal mission here on earth. No, I am not a sexpert, a psychologist or a dietician. I am not a mother of three or the owner of a successful hosiery franchise. But I am a girl with a keen interest in having it all, and what follows are hopeful dispatches from the frontlines of that struggle.""--

a young woman tells you what she's "learned"

Not that kind of girl

Cola

Fucking yikes. I kept thinking throughout reading this, if I didn’t know who Lena Dunham was would I have still liked the book? And I kept saying “no.” Maybe because we are two very different types of New Yorkers and I just could not relate. What bugs me is that she never really acknowledges her privilege, but goes on talking about things that are supposedly be relatable? My parents did not attend art gallery openings. Aside from that it’s mostly a book of neurosis. I imagine Cazzie David’s book will read very similarly.

Olivera Mitić

I sit here and wonder 'How on earth did this ever get published?'
By no means do I want to be rude, I'm just trying to say that in here there were so many things that were either unnecessary or weird (not in the good way) or just way too random. For example, there were 11 pages full of lists of all the things she used to eat throughout a day and the number of calories they had. And yes, that was a part of the chapter in which she talks about diet, but seriously, did I need to know what you ate, woman? 
Most of the time, I didn't like Lena's tone at all. She was way too annoying, self absorbed and spoiled to some amount (I'm not saying that, in fact, Lena Dunham is all of that, but as someone who doesn't know her in person, I only got these vibes). 
The thing that bothered me the most was that there were only 2 sentences in which she even mentions her tv show (Girls, which I love, by the way). Instead of those 11 pages filled with listing food, there could have been just one, I'm only asking for one, in which she talks about her inspiration for the show or how she was even thrown into that crazy deal of getting your own show on HBO at just 25. 
On the other hand, I did enjoy most of the chapters in which she talks about her ex boyfriends. These were perhaps the only few parts of the book I liked. They had a more personal feeling to them and allowed me to relate a little bit here and there to the story she wanted to share with us. 
Lena used to be someone I looked up to quite a lot, but after reading this, I didn't know why I admired her at all. Girls was everything I ever wanted from tv and it had deep messages and undertones. Not That Kind of Girl had pages and pages of things that didn't evoke anything in me, except for maybe boredom. It felt like Lena, whom I considered to be extremely talented, had nothing left to say. 
If I didn't listen to this on audiobook I doubt I would have been able to finish it.
I feel really sad now, so excuse me while I go and rewatch Girls while I grief in silence.

Shelby Wideman

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Includes two new essays! NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MICHIKO KAKUTANI, THE NEW YORK TIMES • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BUZZFEED, THE GLOBE AND MAIL, AND LIBRARY JOURNAL For readers of Nora Ephron, Tina Fey, and David Sedaris, this hilarious, wise, and fiercely candid collection of personal essays establishes Lena Dunham—the acclaimed creator, producer, and star of HBO’s Girls—as one of the most original young talents writing today. In Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham illuminates the experiences that are part of making one’s way in the world: falling in love, feeling alone, being ten pounds overweight despite eating only health food, having to prove yourself in a room full of men twice your age, finding true love, and most of all, having the guts to believe that your story is one that deserves to be told. “Take My Virginity (No Really, Take It)” is the account of Dunham’s first time, and how her expectations of sex didn’t quite live up to the actual event (“No floodgate had been opened, no vault of true womanhood unlocked”); “Girls & Jerks” explores her former attraction to less-than-nice guys—guys who had perfected the “dynamic of disrespect” she found so intriguing; “Is This Even Real?” is a meditation on her lifelong obsession with death and dying—what she calls her “genetically predestined morbidity.” And in “I Didn’t F*** Them, but They Yelled at Me,” she imagines the tell-all she will write when she is eighty and past caring, able to reflect honestly on the sexism and condescension she has encountered in Hollywood, where women are “treated like the paper thingies that protect glasses in hotel bathrooms—necessary but infinitely disposable.” Exuberant, moving, and keenly observed, Not That Kind of Girl is a series of dispatches from the frontlines of the struggle that is growing up. “I’m already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you,” Dunham writes. “But if I can take what I’ve learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine will have been worthwhile.” Praise for Not That Kind of Girl “The gifted Ms. Dunham not only writes with observant precision, but also brings a measure of perspective, nostalgia and an older person’s sort of wisdom to her portrait of her (not all that much) younger self and her world. . . . As acute and heartfelt as it is funny.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “It’s not Lena Dunham’s candor that makes me gasp. Rather, it’s her writing—which is full of surprises where you least expect them. A fine, subversive book.”—David Sedaris “This book should be required reading for anyone who thinks they understand the experience of being a young woman in our culture. I thought I knew the author rather well, and I found many (not altogether welcome) surprises.”—Carroll Dunham “Witty, illuminating, maddening, bracingly bleak . . . [Dunham] is a genuine artist, and a disturber of the order.”—The Atlantic

Georgia Nicholl

Bi and trans phobic. Literally just Dunham going on about how quirky and different she is and not like other girls. Terrible please do not read I’m going to burn this book

Ana Ignat

I read about 30 pages and I didn't enjoy it so I put it down and into the to give pile....

Jessica 

Blog | Twitter | Instagram | DNF @ 21% 

I know what you're asking yourself: Jessica, you don't like Lena Dunham, why are you reading her bloody book? Well, the answer is simple: there was a day this spring where my friend and I went in for half-off margaritas at lunch and suddenly thought heading off to a thrift shop was a good plan after consuming a few drinks. I spotted TWO COPIES of this book on a shelf and thought, eh, why not?

Ah. It was not my finest moment but it was, at least, one of the tamer decision making moments after having a few drinks. My friend and I both tried to get into the book, but just couldn't. Dunham seems to always be consistently putting her foot in her mouth and this is from someone who, when Girls first premiered admired her to a degree. 

I'm not going to say that Not That Kind of Girl is just as bad as you've heard it was because if you're a fan of Dunham, the sentiment of that statement is no longer valid. That being said, taste is subjective. 

If you ARE a fan of Dunham, you'll gobble this up and ask for seconds. If you're not a fan, don't even bother picking this up-even in morbid curiosity.

Not That Kind of Girl Was ich im Leben so gelernt habe

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