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Note to Self
Simone, Alina
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
9 people are currently reading
965 people want to read
About the author
Alina Simone
7 books22 followersAlina Simone is a critically acclaimed singer who was born in Kharkov, Ukraine, and now lives in Brooklyn. Her music has been covered by a wide range of media, including BBC’s The World, NPR, Spin, Billboard, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal. She is the author of the book You Must Go and Win. Note to Self is her debut novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
December 18, 2014
http://theprettygoodgatsby.wordpress....
37-year-old Anna has just found herself out of a job. With a (much younger) roommate in a perpetual state of unpaid internship, Anna's world revolves around refreshing Gawker and Huffington Post and waiting for e-mails that never arrive. While the rest of her friends are happily settled down with a child or two, Anna gives in to Internet rumors and the latest fads.
After discovering a super underground director and his films, Anna decides being a filmmaker is her calling and promptly throws away $3500 on a video camera. Weeks later, the box still remains unopened and Anna's funds are rapidly shrinking. She takes to Craigslist and responds to a post. Shortly after she meets up with Taj, a filmmaker in his own right and becomes a member of his crew.
Between ignoring her mother and her friends-turned-life-coach, living with a newly-pregnant roommate, and bills that won't go away, Anna finds herself thrown into the chaotic world of film festivals.
I had such high hopes for Note to Self, guys! It sounded like a really fun, quick novel. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it half as much as I had hoped and a good deal lies with the way the blurb set it up.
Hailed as "A witty, keenly observant look at our Internet-obsessed culture", I was totally on board. Much to my dismay, however, Note to Self was neither witty, nor Internet-related. At all. Oh, sure, Anna talks about refreshing tabs and always checking her e-mail, but I was expecting, you know, a story. Instead, Anna - at times I COMPLETELY forgot Anna was pushing 40, she acted twenty years younger - was completely irresponsible with her extremely limited funds, bought an outrageously expensive camera, and pretended she knew about art.
The entire time I was reading I kept waiting for something to happen, that pivotal moment when the ball got rolling. I was shocked when I realized I was halfway into the book and Anna was still puttering around her apartment! Eventually Anna meets Taj through a Craigslist ad and goes to 'work' for him - basically doing menial tasks for his assistant for little or no pay. ...and that's it.
Look. I'm all for character-driven stories with super slow plots or no action. But unlike Note to Self, those stories actually feature interesting - for good or bad reasons - characters. There wasn't a single character in Note to Self I liked. Anna was more a teenager than a nearly-40-year old woman. Taj was simply a jerk. His film buddies were so interchangeable they melded together to form one entity in my mind.
At the very end of the book, Anna announces she has an Internet addiction and Taj flies her out to a city in order to 'cure' her. By this point I had lost all interest whatsoever and Taj's eventual betrayal did little to shock or surprise me.
It was with a very hearty FINALLY! that I finished this book. Perhaps I just didn't get it, but Note to Self was a disappointment and let me wanting so much more.
The undiscussed surgeries lay like a weapon on the table before them. Her mother knew, despite the jabs about Anna's weight and the pointed comments about her unemployment, that as someone who wandered the plasticized wilderness somewhere between Joan Rivers and Michael Jackson, she should only go so far.
37-year-old Anna has just found herself out of a job. With a (much younger) roommate in a perpetual state of unpaid internship, Anna's world revolves around refreshing Gawker and Huffington Post and waiting for e-mails that never arrive. While the rest of her friends are happily settled down with a child or two, Anna gives in to Internet rumors and the latest fads.
After discovering a super underground director and his films, Anna decides being a filmmaker is her calling and promptly throws away $3500 on a video camera. Weeks later, the box still remains unopened and Anna's funds are rapidly shrinking. She takes to Craigslist and responds to a post. Shortly after she meets up with Taj, a filmmaker in his own right and becomes a member of his crew.
Between ignoring her mother and her friends-turned-life-coach, living with a newly-pregnant roommate, and bills that won't go away, Anna finds herself thrown into the chaotic world of film festivals.
"Know what people really find comforting?" Taj continued, "Failure. Humiliation. Defeat. That's what makes people feel better."
"You think so?" she said.
"Think about it. Nothing brings people together like a good scandal. Nothing makes them happier than to see something fall from a great height."
I had such high hopes for Note to Self, guys! It sounded like a really fun, quick novel. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it half as much as I had hoped and a good deal lies with the way the blurb set it up.
Hailed as "A witty, keenly observant look at our Internet-obsessed culture", I was totally on board. Much to my dismay, however, Note to Self was neither witty, nor Internet-related. At all. Oh, sure, Anna talks about refreshing tabs and always checking her e-mail, but I was expecting, you know, a story. Instead, Anna - at times I COMPLETELY forgot Anna was pushing 40, she acted twenty years younger - was completely irresponsible with her extremely limited funds, bought an outrageously expensive camera, and pretended she knew about art.
The entire time I was reading I kept waiting for something to happen, that pivotal moment when the ball got rolling. I was shocked when I realized I was halfway into the book and Anna was still puttering around her apartment! Eventually Anna meets Taj through a Craigslist ad and goes to 'work' for him - basically doing menial tasks for his assistant for little or no pay. ...and that's it.
Look. I'm all for character-driven stories with super slow plots or no action. But unlike Note to Self, those stories actually feature interesting - for good or bad reasons - characters. There wasn't a single character in Note to Self I liked. Anna was more a teenager than a nearly-40-year old woman. Taj was simply a jerk. His film buddies were so interchangeable they melded together to form one entity in my mind.
At the very end of the book, Anna announces she has an Internet addiction and Taj flies her out to a city in order to 'cure' her. By this point I had lost all interest whatsoever and Taj's eventual betrayal did little to shock or surprise me.
It was with a very hearty FINALLY! that I finished this book. Perhaps I just didn't get it, but Note to Self was a disappointment and let me wanting so much more.
February 27, 2025
Uninteresting, unfunny, unreadable. If it gets better after p80 I'll never know. One star because Alina Simone convinced a publisher to reveal her efforts to the world. Awful book.
October 29, 2014
I won this book via goodreads giveaways. And it in no way changed my view on the story.
Just wow...and not a good one either. It was trying to hard to get this weird indie movie vibe of just strange.. and it was sorta pathetic on how hard it was to read. I dragged this book with me like a ball in chain. The main protagonist was dull, shes 37 years old hates quite a lot of things has no idea what to do with her life and a is addict to the internet. Now I will admit I probably spend far to much time as is on my own computer but not to the crazy extent this lady did.
I didn't feel much of anything for this till maybe near the end when the ball finally started to get rolling and then it was over.
My advice just don't waste your time.
Just wow...and not a good one either. It was trying to hard to get this weird indie movie vibe of just strange.. and it was sorta pathetic on how hard it was to read. I dragged this book with me like a ball in chain. The main protagonist was dull, shes 37 years old hates quite a lot of things has no idea what to do with her life and a is addict to the internet. Now I will admit I probably spend far to much time as is on my own computer but not to the crazy extent this lady did.
I didn't feel much of anything for this till maybe near the end when the ball finally started to get rolling and then it was over.
My advice just don't waste your time.
abandoned
August 11, 2013What's that old saying, "If you don't have anything nice to say, better say nothing at all."
I'm not going to say anything here, except that the tone of this book just did not work for me.
I'm not going to say anything here, except that the tone of this book just did not work for me.
Read
November 18, 2013It's like she somehow crept in and read my procrastinating mind. Loving it so far.
April 9, 2013
We’ve been examining the lives of our young adults at least since Gertrude Stein’s “lost generation” pronouncement nearly 100 years ago. In a new novel, Alina Simone has taken a look at a particular 30-something who, while she’s not meant to stand for an entire generation, is rather lost.
Anna Krestler is 37, and much is unsettled about her life. She hasn’t finished paying for graduate school (in Slavic studies), which she didn’t complete anyway, and she was overeducated for a job at a Midtown Manhattan law firm, but that doesn’t matter now, because she just got fired. She has no husband, boyfriend, or sex partners, which sets her apart from her two close friends and her roommate. She weighs too much and thinks she may be depressed, but her insurance won’t pay for much therapy. “Plus the medicine made you fat, didn’t it? It destroyed your sex drive. One was faced with a miserable choice between sad, sexed up, and thin, or fat, sexless, and happy.”
Anna’s chief pursuit—apart from constantly questioning herself—exemplifies everything about her that’s unfinished, unfocused, and lacking a discernible goal: the Internet. She sometimes gets up in the middle of the night to check email—where there’s seldom anything new, but there’s always that one unread message she’s saving—and as for surfing the Web, we all know that can be a time suck.
This being a well-crafted and economical novel, not real life, Anna’s computer-based wanderings do lead somewhere. She learns about a late bloomer (which she’d like to think she is) named Paul Gilman, who recently, at the age of 46, pioneered a style of short film that led him to bigger things. Gilman had used non-actors in pseudo-real situations and proudly told an interviewer, “I edited all of my films in-camera.” (If you scent anything dubious about this, you’re probably right.) Anna goes on to answer a Craiglist ad that takes her to another filmmaker, named Taj, who knows Gilman and aspires to top him somehow. She lands a spot on Taj’s crew (while living off savings, in case you’re curious), plays around with shooting her own footage, and sees not only a possible line of work in filmmaking but also a possible boyfriend in Taj.
Anna isn’t exactly wide-eyed through all this, but only because she knows enough not to seem too impressed. (She’s a New Yorker, after all.) She’s open, accepting, trying to figure out how things work and where she might fit in. In short, Anna is an innocent. Does this mean she’s bound for a sacrifice, or only for an education? In a sense, both; as somebody says in Shaw, learning something always feels like losing something.
There’s hardly a misstep in this book, which is pretty unusual for any first novel and remarkable from someone who hasn’t been focusing on literature for her whole adult life. (Simone became known as a singer-songwriter and only recently became a memoirist.) The only thing I’d question is whether people like these are, in reality, as knowledgeable as Simone depicts here. It may be believable that someone else who answers that Craigslist ad would claim to be named Béla Tarr (who is an actual Hungarian film director), but not that Taj would miss the joke. And would Anna’s background equip her to toss off a last-name reference to “Lacan” (Jacques Lacan) and speculate knowingly on the life and work of Simone Weil (whose name one of the characters takes as a pseudonym)?
Those quibbles are trivial. What stands out about the novel is that it’s delectably comic. I could’ve quoted more of Anna’s observations, but they're likely to be quoted elsewhere. It satirizes in passing some elements of Internet culture, and more directly some indulgences of contemporary art—mainly in the form of underground filmmakers, with a nod to performance artists. I could praise it in more detail, but only at the price of revealing more than I’d like. Suffice it to say that Note to Self is smart, funny, and even more rewarding upon reflection than it is in the reading.
Disclosure: I’ve been acquainted with Alina Simone since about 2007, from attending performances and a reading or two.
Anna Krestler is 37, and much is unsettled about her life. She hasn’t finished paying for graduate school (in Slavic studies), which she didn’t complete anyway, and she was overeducated for a job at a Midtown Manhattan law firm, but that doesn’t matter now, because she just got fired. She has no husband, boyfriend, or sex partners, which sets her apart from her two close friends and her roommate. She weighs too much and thinks she may be depressed, but her insurance won’t pay for much therapy. “Plus the medicine made you fat, didn’t it? It destroyed your sex drive. One was faced with a miserable choice between sad, sexed up, and thin, or fat, sexless, and happy.”
Anna’s chief pursuit—apart from constantly questioning herself—exemplifies everything about her that’s unfinished, unfocused, and lacking a discernible goal: the Internet. She sometimes gets up in the middle of the night to check email—where there’s seldom anything new, but there’s always that one unread message she’s saving—and as for surfing the Web, we all know that can be a time suck.
This being a well-crafted and economical novel, not real life, Anna’s computer-based wanderings do lead somewhere. She learns about a late bloomer (which she’d like to think she is) named Paul Gilman, who recently, at the age of 46, pioneered a style of short film that led him to bigger things. Gilman had used non-actors in pseudo-real situations and proudly told an interviewer, “I edited all of my films in-camera.” (If you scent anything dubious about this, you’re probably right.) Anna goes on to answer a Craiglist ad that takes her to another filmmaker, named Taj, who knows Gilman and aspires to top him somehow. She lands a spot on Taj’s crew (while living off savings, in case you’re curious), plays around with shooting her own footage, and sees not only a possible line of work in filmmaking but also a possible boyfriend in Taj.
Anna isn’t exactly wide-eyed through all this, but only because she knows enough not to seem too impressed. (She’s a New Yorker, after all.) She’s open, accepting, trying to figure out how things work and where she might fit in. In short, Anna is an innocent. Does this mean she’s bound for a sacrifice, or only for an education? In a sense, both; as somebody says in Shaw, learning something always feels like losing something.
There’s hardly a misstep in this book, which is pretty unusual for any first novel and remarkable from someone who hasn’t been focusing on literature for her whole adult life. (Simone became known as a singer-songwriter and only recently became a memoirist.) The only thing I’d question is whether people like these are, in reality, as knowledgeable as Simone depicts here. It may be believable that someone else who answers that Craigslist ad would claim to be named Béla Tarr (who is an actual Hungarian film director), but not that Taj would miss the joke. And would Anna’s background equip her to toss off a last-name reference to “Lacan” (Jacques Lacan) and speculate knowingly on the life and work of Simone Weil (whose name one of the characters takes as a pseudonym)?
Those quibbles are trivial. What stands out about the novel is that it’s delectably comic. I could’ve quoted more of Anna’s observations, but they're likely to be quoted elsewhere. It satirizes in passing some elements of Internet culture, and more directly some indulgences of contemporary art—mainly in the form of underground filmmakers, with a nod to performance artists. I could praise it in more detail, but only at the price of revealing more than I’d like. Suffice it to say that Note to Self is smart, funny, and even more rewarding upon reflection than it is in the reading.
Disclosure: I’ve been acquainted with Alina Simone since about 2007, from attending performances and a reading or two.
August 12, 2013
Terrific read.
There are lots of books right now about young creatives in Brooklyn. This one is a real winner. Although the plot line meanders, the ending packs a nightmarish sucker punch- cruel, surprising and convincing The main thing, though, is the pungent observations about ambition, sexuality, and power among desperate 30ish “interestings”. I know this sounds just like “Girls” and countless other works in the genre, but Simone is adds a level of really poignant Chekovian humanism that enriches to the cool cynicism typical of this genre. In fact this juxtaposition is an important element in the book and what I love most about it. The protagonist is Anna Krestler, a sluggish, overweight internet addict. She is very vulnerable, lazy and can’t do much career-wise except fantasize, until she meets the filmmaker Taj, the male lead in the book who takes her on a romantic and professional rollercoaster ride. Anna’s nemesis is named Simone Weil. Simone is hip, cold, very attractive to men, a total art careerist but perhaps just as miserable as Anna. Put the two first names together and you get “Anna Simone” These characters seem to me to both be alter egos for the author Alina Simone. Put the two personas together and you have a tremendously well observed character. I felt the tugs in both directions viscerally. Taj’s has relationships with both women. he is convincing as a simultaneous Svengali, good guy (at first), vicious operator and art star wannabe.
There are lots of books right now about young creatives in Brooklyn. This one is a real winner. Although the plot line meanders, the ending packs a nightmarish sucker punch- cruel, surprising and convincing The main thing, though, is the pungent observations about ambition, sexuality, and power among desperate 30ish “interestings”. I know this sounds just like “Girls” and countless other works in the genre, but Simone is adds a level of really poignant Chekovian humanism that enriches to the cool cynicism typical of this genre. In fact this juxtaposition is an important element in the book and what I love most about it. The protagonist is Anna Krestler, a sluggish, overweight internet addict. She is very vulnerable, lazy and can’t do much career-wise except fantasize, until she meets the filmmaker Taj, the male lead in the book who takes her on a romantic and professional rollercoaster ride. Anna’s nemesis is named Simone Weil. Simone is hip, cold, very attractive to men, a total art careerist but perhaps just as miserable as Anna. Put the two first names together and you get “Anna Simone” These characters seem to me to both be alter egos for the author Alina Simone. Put the two personas together and you have a tremendously well observed character. I felt the tugs in both directions viscerally. Taj’s has relationships with both women. he is convincing as a simultaneous Svengali, good guy (at first), vicious operator and art star wannabe.
did-not-finish
May 9, 2020Clearing out my to-read list 2020: I like the protagonist, but not the style. I generally have a hard time getting into comic novels and I can tell this won't be one of the few that work for me. Also, I think I should've read it earlier – it's a novel about the internet written in 2013, and I tried reading it in 2020, meaning it felt significantly out of date, but not out of date enough to be of nostalgic interest. (I have to say, the amount of judgement about Anna's age in the other reviews for this on Goodreads really makes me wish I'd been able to read and love it.)
January 23, 2020
Ugh. I actually didn't finish this book because it was just so blah. The main character is in her late 30s, same as me, so I thought it'd be relatable. But she's just lost, listless, and has no direction, which I guess a lot of people are like, but there's no explanation of why, or any serious introspection by the character as to why she's the way she is. She exists by the whims of life and the people around her, I guess? I could not get into this book at all.
November 21, 2019
I couldn’t make it through this book. I tried to but I couldn’t get into it.
January 22, 2020
Hmmm. This book is very different to anything I've read before. The storyline is a bit strange, and the writing style is interesting. Didn't see the ending coming.
November 25, 2021
Toughed it out to the end and was not worth it
June 19, 2024
A very strange book indeed. Not strange in like a psychedelic type strange. But strange in like a, I didn't really know what was going on or what purpose the book was serving.
It is about a woman in a midlife crisis who finds she's addicted to the internet and concocts a rather bizarre way to try to solve that.
I felt like there was no clear direction of the story and no clear resolution for any of the characters.
It is about a woman in a midlife crisis who finds she's addicted to the internet and concocts a rather bizarre way to try to solve that.
I felt like there was no clear direction of the story and no clear resolution for any of the characters.
August 7, 2013
[I won a free ARC copy of this book in a Goodreads "First Reads" Giveaway.]
Anna Krestler is 37 years old and unemployed. Being unemployed is bad enough, but being unemployed in the New York metro (Williamsburg, Brooklyn) area presents extra challenges. It doesn't help matters that her roommate, Brie, works multiple unpaid internships that are supposed to position her for much-coveted paid positions. This isn't the life Anna thought she'd have when she was in the Slavic studies PhD program at Columbia University. But stalling out on writing her dissertation had led to an invitation not to return, so she ultimately "only managed to slink out of Columbia with a master's." Her next move had been to take a stultifying desk job at a law firm whose name "made people say 'Oh! They hadn't heard of it, just felt as if they should have." The steady though unsubstantial paycheck from this job ends with a layoff.
While Anna's friend Leslie administers free life-coaching sessions to help Anna find her new, true path, Anna obsesses over the internet. Her Gmail account houses her collection of spam, that she selects and saves like a junk-mail curator. She spends hours of every day refreshing her favorite
webpages in multiple tabs, checking and rechecking her email account, and trying to find direction in her life via Craigslist. It is through a Craigslist ad that she meets Taj, an indie filmmaker who invites her to join his crew and assist him in creating films based on people's dreams (as in aspirations--not what they do when they're in REM sleep). Anna's involvement with the film projects fills her with a new sense of purpose and confidence, but her savings continue to dwindle without any sign that she'll be compensated financially.
Note to Self features a fresh narrative voice and appeals to me based on my own experiences as an ex-academic who also has "art" and "film" backgrounds and has lived in Brooklyn. I often found myself nodding in recognition over certain "internet" behaviors of Anna's, like when she wonders if she might have a form of Google-tourettes because of her random searches. Hoping for a definite, well-defined relationship has her musing that "it's vague" is a more apt descriptor than Facebook's "it's complicated." Anna goes on a journey (both literal and metaphoric) that of course doesn't quite lead where she hopes or expects it will, but helps nudge her in a new direction.
Anna Krestler is 37 years old and unemployed. Being unemployed is bad enough, but being unemployed in the New York metro (Williamsburg, Brooklyn) area presents extra challenges. It doesn't help matters that her roommate, Brie, works multiple unpaid internships that are supposed to position her for much-coveted paid positions. This isn't the life Anna thought she'd have when she was in the Slavic studies PhD program at Columbia University. But stalling out on writing her dissertation had led to an invitation not to return, so she ultimately "only managed to slink out of Columbia with a master's." Her next move had been to take a stultifying desk job at a law firm whose name "made people say 'Oh! They hadn't heard of it, just felt as if they should have." The steady though unsubstantial paycheck from this job ends with a layoff.
While Anna's friend Leslie administers free life-coaching sessions to help Anna find her new, true path, Anna obsesses over the internet. Her Gmail account houses her collection of spam, that she selects and saves like a junk-mail curator. She spends hours of every day refreshing her favorite
webpages in multiple tabs, checking and rechecking her email account, and trying to find direction in her life via Craigslist. It is through a Craigslist ad that she meets Taj, an indie filmmaker who invites her to join his crew and assist him in creating films based on people's dreams (as in aspirations--not what they do when they're in REM sleep). Anna's involvement with the film projects fills her with a new sense of purpose and confidence, but her savings continue to dwindle without any sign that she'll be compensated financially.
Note to Self features a fresh narrative voice and appeals to me based on my own experiences as an ex-academic who also has "art" and "film" backgrounds and has lived in Brooklyn. I often found myself nodding in recognition over certain "internet" behaviors of Anna's, like when she wonders if she might have a form of Google-tourettes because of her random searches. Hoping for a definite, well-defined relationship has her musing that "it's vague" is a more apt descriptor than Facebook's "it's complicated." Anna goes on a journey (both literal and metaphoric) that of course doesn't quite lead where she hopes or expects it will, but helps nudge her in a new direction.
Read
June 9, 2014http://www.full-stop.net/2013/08/27/r...
Review by Rebecca Caine
A quick look at today’s movies, TV shows, and books reveals that there’s a market for stories about the misadventures of young, unemployed Brooklynites struggling to find their place in the world. These kids pick up the kinds of odd jobs with touches of glamour that you can only find in New York City; they go to themed parties on roof decks; they have uncomfortable sex with questionable people. Alina Simone’s Note to Self, at first glance, fits right in — another cute story of an awkward/semi-hip broke girl searching for career and romantic satisfaction. Then you learn that the protagonist is 37, and she still hasn’t figured out her shit, and she relies on the Internet like a drug. And then it stops being cute.
Note to Self is a story of pathetic people who seek solace by reassuring themselves that there are people out there who are even lamer. Take our protagonist, Anna. Nearing middle age, unmarried, overweight, no close friends, living with a girl from Craigslist who’s ten years younger. She’s been recently fired from her job as a low-level employee at a law firm and is casting about to find her new life path.
In order to feel better about her own life, Anna kills her unemployed hours reading stories on disreputable websites about other people’s problems. This obsession with people who are more pathetic than she is has become a form of escapism that Anna can’t seem to escape from. She briefly fantasizes about writing a book about late bloomers — women who succeeded — but this idea doesn’t hold her attention; she turns back to reading about stories of failure.
As Anna’s real life remains unfulfilling, she seeks validation in the virtual world. She compulsively refreshes her inbox; she aches when she hasn’t checked Twitter all day. When she admits it, she calls it an addiction to the Internet.
Read more here: http://www.full-stop.net/2013/08/27/r...
Review by Rebecca Caine
A quick look at today’s movies, TV shows, and books reveals that there’s a market for stories about the misadventures of young, unemployed Brooklynites struggling to find their place in the world. These kids pick up the kinds of odd jobs with touches of glamour that you can only find in New York City; they go to themed parties on roof decks; they have uncomfortable sex with questionable people. Alina Simone’s Note to Self, at first glance, fits right in — another cute story of an awkward/semi-hip broke girl searching for career and romantic satisfaction. Then you learn that the protagonist is 37, and she still hasn’t figured out her shit, and she relies on the Internet like a drug. And then it stops being cute.
Note to Self is a story of pathetic people who seek solace by reassuring themselves that there are people out there who are even lamer. Take our protagonist, Anna. Nearing middle age, unmarried, overweight, no close friends, living with a girl from Craigslist who’s ten years younger. She’s been recently fired from her job as a low-level employee at a law firm and is casting about to find her new life path.
In order to feel better about her own life, Anna kills her unemployed hours reading stories on disreputable websites about other people’s problems. This obsession with people who are more pathetic than she is has become a form of escapism that Anna can’t seem to escape from. She briefly fantasizes about writing a book about late bloomers — women who succeeded — but this idea doesn’t hold her attention; she turns back to reading about stories of failure.
As Anna’s real life remains unfulfilling, she seeks validation in the virtual world. She compulsively refreshes her inbox; she aches when she hasn’t checked Twitter all day. When she admits it, she calls it an addiction to the Internet.
Read more here: http://www.full-stop.net/2013/08/27/r...
September 8, 2013
I won a copy of Note to Self from the Goodreads Giveaway. From the description, this showed promise of being humorous, something akin to, say, Let's Pretend This Never Happened. But once you begin reading, you quickly realize Note to Self is very, very different and more uncomfortable than funny. The protagonist, Anna, is a 37 year old woman who has just lost her job and seems to have absolutely no direction in life. The one thing she does have is an unhealthy relationship with the Internet. I get that Simone is attempting to make a statement about society today and our obsession with technology, realism, and the Internet, but the places she forces Anna to go to get that message across seem unnecessary. I generally did not even find Anna likeable - she spends so much time mired in self-doubt and then makes some truly ridiculous decisions that I found myself wanting to slap her more than once. The climactic scene at the film festival is well done but you see that outcome coming fairly early on in the book, though I think Simone meant for it to be shocking or some type of twist. Overall, Note to Self had the potential to be something better than what it turned out to be.
June 23, 2021
There's something that's both alarmingly and comfortingly familiar about this book. It's good to know I'm not the only one who can see the weird idiocy we live in these days, but by the same token I want so badly to believe in it, to not be jaded, to be one of those happily drunk permanent interns, those postmodern media performance artists.
I'm not quite at Anna's stage in life, but I'm past Brie's, and I see some of myself in both of them, somehow, which I think is a hallmark of strong characters and a quality story. It's a meandering and off-topic and ADD story at times, but then so are our lives anymore. I plowed through this one quickly, almost embarrassed at how much I understood it and how much the author understood me and my own lack of understanding of myself and my life (how meta). The ending was a bit pat and abrupt, unfortunately, but not enough to to ruin the whole thing.
I received a free copy through the First Reads program, and Note to Self is by far one of the best books I've gotten to this point, and one of the best I've read all year.
Highly recommend, but only if you're between the ages of 25-40. Anyone else just might not get it.
I'm not quite at Anna's stage in life, but I'm past Brie's, and I see some of myself in both of them, somehow, which I think is a hallmark of strong characters and a quality story. It's a meandering and off-topic and ADD story at times, but then so are our lives anymore. I plowed through this one quickly, almost embarrassed at how much I understood it and how much the author understood me and my own lack of understanding of myself and my life (how meta). The ending was a bit pat and abrupt, unfortunately, but not enough to to ruin the whole thing.
I received a free copy through the First Reads program, and Note to Self is by far one of the best books I've gotten to this point, and one of the best I've read all year.
Highly recommend, but only if you're between the ages of 25-40. Anyone else just might not get it.
July 25, 2013
The plot gave me the impression that it was trying to emulate the hard-to-follow plots of classic indie films--weird narratives, funky colors, odd settings. A few too many trying-too-hard similes too: "...and curacao, glowing behind the bar like the Manhattan skyline rendered in liquor." "...growing up in suburban Connecticut where the streets all circled one other like bored house pets..." "...their conversations only skimmed the surface of things, like the animated ball bouncing over the lyrics on a karaoke machine."
On and on the similes went, like I-40 thru Tennessee.
Plus there's supposed to be a major twist at the end. And although I was surprised by the extent of it, I could see the basic ending coming from a mile away.
Still, some LOL funny bits and enjoyable for what it ultimately is: summer fluff reading.
August 5, 2013
I saw this book reviewed and it sounded like something I could really get on board with. Peppered with pop cultural references and an internet addicted 30 something female protagonist who gets involved in the world of indie film. What could go wrong?
Turns out, quite a lot. I think Aline Simone really hates hipsters, and beyond that she hates fake artists more. That's not a problem, I think we all do, but this book is so rife with cynicism that at times it almost hurts to read it.
Simone is a good writer, with interesting subject matter, and towards the end it did turn into a real page turner. But the resolution was weak, and it's about the worst thing thing that any aspiring creative could read.
Wanted to like it, but didn't feel like joining the author in CleverCleverLand.
Turns out, quite a lot. I think Aline Simone really hates hipsters, and beyond that she hates fake artists more. That's not a problem, I think we all do, but this book is so rife with cynicism that at times it almost hurts to read it.
Simone is a good writer, with interesting subject matter, and towards the end it did turn into a real page turner. But the resolution was weak, and it's about the worst thing thing that any aspiring creative could read.
Wanted to like it, but didn't feel like joining the author in CleverCleverLand.
December 9, 2013
Alina Simone comes with some fantastic and sharp comments about the internet and postmodern society in general - and that's the only good things about the novel. But even though many says it is "witty" and even "hilarious", I didn't find it even remotely funny. It wasn't just that I read it for a school project - I didn't even crack a smile while reading it. Maybe it's because my native language isn't english, maybe it isn't. But it isn't just the lack of humor. It's the nonexistent process the protagonist undertakes, the unsuccessful ending and the sad, old main character. It isn't a success - only if you have hipster humor, lives in New York and want some good points (that if you're lucky are witty) about the Internet and the postmodern society...
January 21, 2014
Note to Self is a book about the times in which we are living, the time of the Internet: hyper-stimulated, self-obsessed, voyeuristic, and incredibly isolated.
Even though Anna is older than I am, I still way over identified with her feelings of purposelessness. Her anxieties about the future echoed mine so closely I had to wonder if Simone read my diary. I was so caught up in Anna’s struggle to figure her shit out, to find herself, that I was just as blindsided as she by the novel’s climactic scene. This book captures what I feel is the mood of society at the moment, at least in my generation—broadly speaking of course, close friends of mine please take no offense I’m not speaking of any of you.
http://www.thewhynottblog.com/book-re...
Even though Anna is older than I am, I still way over identified with her feelings of purposelessness. Her anxieties about the future echoed mine so closely I had to wonder if Simone read my diary. I was so caught up in Anna’s struggle to figure her shit out, to find herself, that I was just as blindsided as she by the novel’s climactic scene. This book captures what I feel is the mood of society at the moment, at least in my generation—broadly speaking of course, close friends of mine please take no offense I’m not speaking of any of you.
http://www.thewhynottblog.com/book-re...
September 23, 2013
Ms. Simone really delivers the funny with this novel. Being 30-something and adrift is nothing new, but the main character is so very open and honest you can't help but become emotionally invested in her future. The story is told by the main character (Anna) in a stream of consciousness style, which works well with the characters witty and sharp observations. The pacing is good, the dialogue crisp and funny, the use of Craigslist and Independent films are topical and relevant, and the story of how Anna deals with her life and times is amusing. Just a great light read.
*I received my copy from NetGalley.com in exchange for an honest review.
*I received my copy from NetGalley.com in exchange for an honest review.
June 8, 2013
loosely threaded together with the idea for 'Internet addiction', this novel seems to think that it has a big plot twist, in reality the blurb ruins it from the start. Even though the story line is obvious and trails along, Anna is an interesting character. Yet this feels so much like a second draft. With some good pieces yet so obviously heading in one direction, it could have done with a really good editor. A shame as it seemingly had so much potential of being more than the average chick lit.
February 7, 2014
Sort of The Unbearable Lightness of Being meets The Devil Wears Prada, by way of McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Or something. It's definitely got some chick-lit (girl in the big city wrestles with love and employment issues), but it's also a William Gibson-esque exploration of a niche subculture, and it's shot through with random stream-of-consciousness flights of fancy. Just like the Internet, you get the feeling it has a lot to say, but when you're done you're not quite sure what exactly it was.
June 19, 2014
It gets bumped up from the dregs of a 1 for the power of the film at the end and for the way it does make you reconsider pieces of the story that has come before - but so much of this story inspires a reader to say little more than "who cares?" It's entertaining to be flailing through life in your twenties - it's pathetic to do so in your thirties, in the way that Anna does here. Put another way, her age seems arbitrary in a way that it simply cannot be. If she was 27, maybe this would all make more sense. But she's 37 - how can you have me care that she's squandered her life?
More TK:
More TK:
April 12, 2015
I liked this and found myself laughing out loud at times when the author really hit the nail on the head in terms of her observations of pop culture and internet obsession. This is one of those books where it's almost painful to read because you want to reach into the book and help the main character somehow. Really this is a pretty astute critique of modern-day fame. My favorite line came at the end when a supporting character pointed out that offline, nobody cares what's going on on the internet; I want to believe that this is true.
October 23, 2013
I generally had no interest in this book, but I did want to know how this cluster-f finished. It was depressing, but at times so depressing that it was funny - in a pathetic sort of way. I don't usually read about cinema/art so it was an insight into that messed up indie, hipster world, but I could have done without it. Luckily it only took me a day and a half to read.
* Note to Self: I need to pay better attention to the reviews I read when deciding what choose next.
* Note to Self: I need to pay better attention to the reviews I read when deciding what choose next.
August 8, 2016
I had high hopes for this book, as it starts out with a unique and relatable anti-heroine, a 37-year old woman who is addicted to the Internet. But I was ultimately disappointed by the painfully naive voice of the main character, the way she is taken advantage of and gaslit by most of the other characters, and the lack of any kind of redemption or satisfactory end to her arc (or that of any of the characters).
March 10, 2013
A funny, deceptively casual novel about a woman at loose ends after losing her boring job. Unlike most writers, Simone doesn't ignore the existence of iPhones and Facebook; her heroine is addicted to the interwebz, as we all are. This isn't as boring as it sounds, but it makes for an itchy, uncomfortable reading experience, something like watching cat videos on a beautiful day.
dnf
July 25, 2013I got three chapters in and thought I can't handle this anymore. It's supposed to be a funny look at how narcissistic the internet and social media has made us. Characters were showing up without being introduced. It was just all over the place and trying too hard to be funny. Won't be giving it another go.
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