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LIVEBLOG
In 2013, Megan Boyle was unhappy with the life she was living and wanted to document it on the internet for an audience. Her hope was that if she documented each thought and action on the internet, then she would begin to behave in a manner more appropriate to the life she wanted to live. She needed a judge and a jury to see her crimes and non-crimes, her actions and thoughts, and her life. The results are an illuminating text of great length with poetic insight on every page. It is a reading experience that leaves a little bit of Megan Boyle inside of you long after you have finished reading it. This is akin to Karl Ove Knausgard’s My Struggle and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, yet totally different and new―and it is a book of daring length. Drugs, love, home, parents, friends, life, death, work, and the internet. LIVEBLOG is an historical text, extremely unique and shockingly human.
707 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2015
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1649 people want to read
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July 11, 2025what does it say about me that i want to read 707 pages of a random person's every thought
July 9, 2018
Earlier I tweeted ‘Liveblog is a drug’ as a kind of joke - but as I read this book it became like a trip filled with emotional highs and lows, revelations about the human condition and moments of pure silliness. So, yeah Liveblog is the greatest drug. It’s like getting kidnapped by your new best friend. By dispensing with plot and focusing on life as it is, Megan Boyle has written the most human book ever. Liveblog has everything- it’s a journal-like account of a life, a giant playlist, a meditation on depression, relationships and time, a joke book, a guide to nootropics, an ode to parents, there’s even a recipe in there. It’s a major work of art that succeeds in its excess. It’ll get you high.
December 5, 2019
I was reading the liner notes for a jazz record because that's the kind of asshole I am and the notes said something to the effect of 'some people think this is just noise, but I, an enlightened listener, recognize this as pure creative expression' and when I listened to it I sat on my couch like a dummy trying to figure out which was true. And of course nothing is ever one thing, so at times the record sounded like the transcendent moment of discovery and there were times where it sounded like searching; restless and searing.
September 30, 2019
Some favorite parts:
“drinking unpasteurized milk mom said ‘comes right from the cow.’ (7)
“skipped to kitchen, making a noise like ‘blreelerleeloobleeloolooloo.” (9)
“‘earth intruders’ by bjork came on iPod shuffle. Chuckled imagining being the emperor of the universe and banishing Brandon Scott Gorrell to a small white room where he has to do...something...for eternity, while this song plays on repeat (I feel positive things about bsg and wouldn’t do that if I was emperor of the universe.)” (10)
“Irritated at mass 'Matt Monarch' raw food newsletter.” (15)
“I don't notice eyes unless it looks like someone is behind them, controlling where they look.” (16)
“I know people like to shittalk how people say ‘feel like’ and ‘seems like.’ That’s all. Just, know that I know that. I know you do that. I’m watching you.” (24)
“going to type what I’m thinking in rapid succession: I’m losing it, my marbles, off my rocker, rocking out, heavy metal garage band, toy boat, where my dads, blinky butttress, that show on MTV with Matt Pinfield, did I ever mow the lawn completely, mow mow, mowrats, the momeraths out grabe, powpowpower wheels, dicey jukebox, the hellish landscapes of a Peruvian metal crisis, financial distress” (26)
“somehow was capable of having heated vague two-hour conversation with dad about problems with our interactions, which ended with us hugging a few times and making jokes.” (26)
“Told him his asking permission sometimes seems sarcastic because I thought he knew I was never doing anything important. He denied the sarcasm strongly. He denied the sarcasm strongly. He has always thought I’ve been doing something important. How could he think that. I believe him, but. What a disappointment I must be.” (26)
“ate three small sugar-free sprouted cookies, one glass raw/unpasteurized milk.” (45)
“tao is doing poetry presentation in chicago tonight and invited people to party in his room, it says on twitter. nostalgic for the beginning of our relationship, when i went along on his book tour. read all about it in ‘taipei,’ look out for ‘taipei,’ which reading will likely make you sad and laugh and think interesting things about life the way tao’s books do only this one is my favorite. (58)
“told mom i was never going to stop the liveblog, like, just keep doing it forever, writing everything down forever. she seemed confused. i said ‘like, until i die, this is going to be my sole output, i’m not going to do anything else. like, with writing.’ she still seemed confused. i said ‘the liveblog thingy, remember?’ she said ‘oh, right. is what you’re saying...are you saying you’re still writing in it?’ i said ‘yeah, yeah. yeah. people have been contacting me and stuff and it feels really good.’ (131)
“in tao’s email he said he wanted to get divorced for taxes before april 15, but then i’m like. ‘does he just want to involve himself in the liveblog, he commented that thing about wanting to directly influence liveblog.’ i know that’s not it. i think. i think he’s being honest about taxes. but that would be funny. i would love it, i think, would delight in including it all themore, if he did it to directly influence/place situation in liveblog. (161)
“this is a documentation of a time period where i barely talked or moved or slept.” (168)
“staying awake for days in a row while having not-urgent tasks to complete means i could lie and say i fell asleep and just do nothing-type shit like what i did from 1:45-7 today, not telling anyone anything. maybe i should start posting screenshots of web history.” (207)
“ate a snigly niblet of adderall.” (223)
“Employee said a long sincere thing about how...seems boring to type.” (233)
“Paranormally bleak sky.” (254)
“i said 'help, how many fonts' in a stunted lummox voice.” (262)
“seems like buddha-like people, like, enlightened people feel the same thing i’m feeling but they get joy out of it” (329)
“if i have sex with anyone i don’t want a relatioship with i have to eat a bowl of dry cat food and half a can of wet food.” (400)
“Tao wrote ‘live blog’ in my copy of ‘taipei,’ I didn’t see until now.” (476)
“Turned head and experienced sudden barely graspable memory of dream, like turning my head released ‘dream memory chemicals’ maybe.” (478)
“i feel lucky or something, to be sort of involved in this book, to be written about in this way, that tao found words to describe these things i remember feeling and thinking too, but haven’t made into words.” (490)
“affectionately thought of myself as ‘clumbering lummor.’” (534)
“i said ‘i’m really feeling kind of [noise like ‘eeuurruh’ with ‘icky face’ and ‘vague hand movement’].” (611)
“discovered, via twitter, that tao had eaten a large dose of mushrooms last night, deleted his twitter, facebook, tumblr accounts, and threw out his macbook due to being ‘posessed by aliens.’ thought ‘sounds about right.’” (615)
“as i was brushing teeth i thought ‘you are becoming an insane ranting dislikable person.’” (675)
“I’ve been restraining myself from typing things like this for weeks.” (691)
“drinking unpasteurized milk mom said ‘comes right from the cow.’ (7)
“skipped to kitchen, making a noise like ‘blreelerleeloobleeloolooloo.” (9)
“‘earth intruders’ by bjork came on iPod shuffle. Chuckled imagining being the emperor of the universe and banishing Brandon Scott Gorrell to a small white room where he has to do...something...for eternity, while this song plays on repeat (I feel positive things about bsg and wouldn’t do that if I was emperor of the universe.)” (10)
“Irritated at mass 'Matt Monarch' raw food newsletter.” (15)
“I don't notice eyes unless it looks like someone is behind them, controlling where they look.” (16)
“I know people like to shittalk how people say ‘feel like’ and ‘seems like.’ That’s all. Just, know that I know that. I know you do that. I’m watching you.” (24)
“going to type what I’m thinking in rapid succession: I’m losing it, my marbles, off my rocker, rocking out, heavy metal garage band, toy boat, where my dads, blinky butttress, that show on MTV with Matt Pinfield, did I ever mow the lawn completely, mow mow, mowrats, the momeraths out grabe, powpowpower wheels, dicey jukebox, the hellish landscapes of a Peruvian metal crisis, financial distress” (26)
“somehow was capable of having heated vague two-hour conversation with dad about problems with our interactions, which ended with us hugging a few times and making jokes.” (26)
“Told him his asking permission sometimes seems sarcastic because I thought he knew I was never doing anything important. He denied the sarcasm strongly. He denied the sarcasm strongly. He has always thought I’ve been doing something important. How could he think that. I believe him, but. What a disappointment I must be.” (26)
“ate three small sugar-free sprouted cookies, one glass raw/unpasteurized milk.” (45)
“tao is doing poetry presentation in chicago tonight and invited people to party in his room, it says on twitter. nostalgic for the beginning of our relationship, when i went along on his book tour. read all about it in ‘taipei,’ look out for ‘taipei,’ which reading will likely make you sad and laugh and think interesting things about life the way tao’s books do only this one is my favorite. (58)
“told mom i was never going to stop the liveblog, like, just keep doing it forever, writing everything down forever. she seemed confused. i said ‘like, until i die, this is going to be my sole output, i’m not going to do anything else. like, with writing.’ she still seemed confused. i said ‘the liveblog thingy, remember?’ she said ‘oh, right. is what you’re saying...are you saying you’re still writing in it?’ i said ‘yeah, yeah. yeah. people have been contacting me and stuff and it feels really good.’ (131)
“in tao’s email he said he wanted to get divorced for taxes before april 15, but then i’m like. ‘does he just want to involve himself in the liveblog, he commented that thing about wanting to directly influence liveblog.’ i know that’s not it. i think. i think he’s being honest about taxes. but that would be funny. i would love it, i think, would delight in including it all themore, if he did it to directly influence/place situation in liveblog. (161)
“this is a documentation of a time period where i barely talked or moved or slept.” (168)
“staying awake for days in a row while having not-urgent tasks to complete means i could lie and say i fell asleep and just do nothing-type shit like what i did from 1:45-7 today, not telling anyone anything. maybe i should start posting screenshots of web history.” (207)
“ate a snigly niblet of adderall.” (223)
“Employee said a long sincere thing about how...seems boring to type.” (233)
“Paranormally bleak sky.” (254)
“i said 'help, how many fonts' in a stunted lummox voice.” (262)
“seems like buddha-like people, like, enlightened people feel the same thing i’m feeling but they get joy out of it” (329)
“if i have sex with anyone i don’t want a relatioship with i have to eat a bowl of dry cat food and half a can of wet food.” (400)
“Tao wrote ‘live blog’ in my copy of ‘taipei,’ I didn’t see until now.” (476)
“Turned head and experienced sudden barely graspable memory of dream, like turning my head released ‘dream memory chemicals’ maybe.” (478)
“i feel lucky or something, to be sort of involved in this book, to be written about in this way, that tao found words to describe these things i remember feeling and thinking too, but haven’t made into words.” (490)
“affectionately thought of myself as ‘clumbering lummor.’” (534)
“i said ‘i’m really feeling kind of [noise like ‘eeuurruh’ with ‘icky face’ and ‘vague hand movement’].” (611)
“discovered, via twitter, that tao had eaten a large dose of mushrooms last night, deleted his twitter, facebook, tumblr accounts, and threw out his macbook due to being ‘posessed by aliens.’ thought ‘sounds about right.’” (615)
“as i was brushing teeth i thought ‘you are becoming an insane ranting dislikable person.’” (675)
“I’ve been restraining myself from typing things like this for weeks.” (691)
April 21, 2022
I loved this nonfiction novel, then I hated this nonfiction novel, and now I am somewhere safely in the middle, though not desensitized to numbness.
Megan Boyle should be admired for her exhaustive writing efforts and uncompromising honesty, which is too personal for comfort. (And probably the point.) Liveblog is as much writing as it is living, and there is something uniquely performative about the "mundane" she describes, as extremely sad/drug induced as her mundane is for the average impressionable reader.
When I hated Liveblog in 2020 my problem wasn't with Boyle's frequently funny and introspective writing, it was the tone of revelry in her degeneracy; hating Liveblog was my 2020 response to my disgust with my own degeneracy of 2013. And after re-reading my own blogs/diaries from that year--thanks to liveblog making me curious--I found myself using the same tone: Nonchalant, dismissive, humorous, nihilistic. It is self-destructive poetry.
Liveblog is a seven-month snapshot of the worst months of Boyle's life. And as much as I personally identify with it, it demands an introductory retrospective, and an afterword. Megan Boyle is alive, but is she Ok? Or is she the same disturbed person from Liveblog? Or is she disturbed in new ways? The book feels incomplete because Megan Boyle is indeed (thankfully) still alive. Thus is the weakness of putting oneself into one's art: taking all criticism personally (which may be why all reviews are so glowing, so as not to offend) and leaving it incomplete as one's life continues, and changes.
Which is why Proust nearly died writing In Remembrance of Things Past simultaneously writing to make it 'endless'; and why Leve killed himself after writing Suicide. Liveblog fits into this category of literature, somewhere, somehow. A compliment indeed.
2013 is long ago, and Liveblog will be a historical peek into the mind of millennials for as long as future generations still care to read. It will not age well, not because it is poorly written; because the millennial generation will not age well, due to the nihilistic glee that they reveled in, as promoted by a Voice of that generation, and lauded, as evidenced by the glowing reviews.
Why are humans so attracted to evil? Is it because a chaste, virtuous version of Liveblog be boring? Is it because living virtuously is boring? Is being entertained all that matters? Is pleasure all that matters? Clearly, no. If pleasure was all that mattered, Boyle would never have attempted to write Liveblog to demonstrate why pleasures, and idleness, has spiritually murdered an entire generation.
Megan Boyle should be admired for her exhaustive writing efforts and uncompromising honesty, which is too personal for comfort. (And probably the point.) Liveblog is as much writing as it is living, and there is something uniquely performative about the "mundane" she describes, as extremely sad/drug induced as her mundane is for the average impressionable reader.
When I hated Liveblog in 2020 my problem wasn't with Boyle's frequently funny and introspective writing, it was the tone of revelry in her degeneracy; hating Liveblog was my 2020 response to my disgust with my own degeneracy of 2013. And after re-reading my own blogs/diaries from that year--thanks to liveblog making me curious--I found myself using the same tone: Nonchalant, dismissive, humorous, nihilistic. It is self-destructive poetry.
Liveblog is a seven-month snapshot of the worst months of Boyle's life. And as much as I personally identify with it, it demands an introductory retrospective, and an afterword. Megan Boyle is alive, but is she Ok? Or is she the same disturbed person from Liveblog? Or is she disturbed in new ways? The book feels incomplete because Megan Boyle is indeed (thankfully) still alive. Thus is the weakness of putting oneself into one's art: taking all criticism personally (which may be why all reviews are so glowing, so as not to offend) and leaving it incomplete as one's life continues, and changes.
Which is why Proust nearly died writing In Remembrance of Things Past simultaneously writing to make it 'endless'; and why Leve killed himself after writing Suicide. Liveblog fits into this category of literature, somewhere, somehow. A compliment indeed.
2013 is long ago, and Liveblog will be a historical peek into the mind of millennials for as long as future generations still care to read. It will not age well, not because it is poorly written; because the millennial generation will not age well, due to the nihilistic glee that they reveled in, as promoted by a Voice of that generation, and lauded, as evidenced by the glowing reviews.
Why are humans so attracted to evil? Is it because a chaste, virtuous version of Liveblog be boring? Is it because living virtuously is boring? Is being entertained all that matters? Is pleasure all that matters? Clearly, no. If pleasure was all that mattered, Boyle would never have attempted to write Liveblog to demonstrate why pleasures, and idleness, has spiritually murdered an entire generation.
January 17, 2019
JAN 17, 2019
1:43 pm: Finished Liveblog
Damn what an immersive experience this was. I couldn't put this book down. Prior to buying this book I did not know who Megan Boyle was but the book looked cool and I've only recently discovered Tyrant Books and everything I've read so far has been amazing so I figured I'd try and read this. I was reluctant because of its size but I couldn't stop reading. I felt comforted by it. I wanted to compare it to the feeling of having a TV on in the background of whatever you're doing but that's not a good comparison. I didn't read this passively, but I didn't read it in the mindset of most other books. It was just very addictive in a sense, always thinking, "I wonder what Megan's doing now..."
I don't know. I loved it.
A note to anyone thinking like "hey maybe I could publish MY daily journal blog into a book TOO".....NO. MEgan did it first. This thing thrives in the originality of its form. fUCK YOU!!! FUck YOU ALL. 5 stars.
1:43 pm: Finished Liveblog
Damn what an immersive experience this was. I couldn't put this book down. Prior to buying this book I did not know who Megan Boyle was but the book looked cool and I've only recently discovered Tyrant Books and everything I've read so far has been amazing so I figured I'd try and read this. I was reluctant because of its size but I couldn't stop reading. I felt comforted by it. I wanted to compare it to the feeling of having a TV on in the background of whatever you're doing but that's not a good comparison. I didn't read this passively, but I didn't read it in the mindset of most other books. It was just very addictive in a sense, always thinking, "I wonder what Megan's doing now..."
I don't know. I loved it.
A note to anyone thinking like "hey maybe I could publish MY daily journal blog into a book TOO".....NO. MEgan did it first. This thing thrives in the originality of its form. fUCK YOU!!! FUck YOU ALL. 5 stars.
March 18, 2022
I saw mumblecore for the first time in october at a free screening, and think fondly of that week as one of the best weeks of my life, had just started seeing brian so after the screening he texted me asking when he should come to my apartment and i said i'm going to this afterparty first, he said lmk if it is popping, i said i'll find out if it is so you can maximize your commute and he said "the popping threshold can be low"
This made me laugh and my best friend joel was acting very shocked, like, i was bouncing around and being "itchy" generally, word he uses, he asked me why i was so happy... i was invited to the mumblecore screening by him and his friend alex, i didn't know anything about the film and from the image of 2 people propping up a copy of infinite jest between them i expected something ironic, cold, but during the course of the film like almost immediately upon it started and was clearly a VLC file someone had pressed play on, v endearingly i thought, and the subtitles had tiny millisecond fades at the beginning and end of each sentence onscreen, it was so funny and sweet, the film was very genuinely warm, sad, tender, i was really affected and afterwards the lights came on with no credits and i was feeling really good, this was when i was just starting to be the more candid/open/self-reliant person that i have been since moving back out of 18 months in virginia, last summer/fall everything was seeming incredibly absurd and easy and playable, like moving through the city afterwards it felt like a game
I was talking to alex very openly and genuinely and he was responding with openness and genuineness, i thought: this is so good, and i will see brian tonight, he's somewhere partway on a >1 hour commute to see me, when he showed up he had a shot of fireball in a ring box that he gave me... the lip of the fireball was partway nudging out of the box, the box couldn't close completely around it. I had given the box to him the week before with an adderall xr pressed into the slit of the foam that was in the box. upon receiving the fireball from him i think i felt something utterly good and crazy. the foam was gone, i asked where the foam was. He said i would find out later.
Before this, which was at the party, the lights came on immediately post-mumblecore and megan boyle and jordan castro came out and began doing a q and a, which was very uncomfortable for me, all of the questions being asked felt very strange and rude because obviously the film was a very true document of part of boyle's life... but it seemed like all the questions were about her and pointed in a way that felt cutting and personal and also somewhat distanced in how personal they were, rather than about the movie... i remember feeling really uncomfortable but also liking her (megan boyle) so much and wanting to talk to her, there were things in the film like they were on the street "I hate everyone" "like everyone on the street" etc. that felt like an old mindset i had once worn and no longer identified with, and i liked that she seemed happy and nervous but also more confident and clearly so able to be warm/open/sincere even with the sorts of questions being asked and the unnatural overhang of the structure of: very personal film being shown and then subject/creator of the film appears in q and a directly after, i wished there was no q and a so i could leave afterward and be on the street and think about the movie myself
I wished i had seen it on a laptop, which i did for the second time, maybe 1-2 weeks ago while reading this book
I liked megan boyle so much, but didn't read this book until now, i have carried it/her mindvoice with me for all of march and it has felt heavy, valuable, sad, and comforting, it felt different than reading normally does like somehow some kind of pale transparent boundary that appears and i have to push through while entering reading or "reading state" normally didn't exist at all here, i read most of this book on my phone, i read the first i think 80 pages or something on the amazon.com LOOK INSIDE preview and then immediately borrowed the book on my phone library app, so i read it generally while doing the exact things she was describing doing and feeling less like i was reading than i don't know, communing, or feeling another life lived in parallel to mine and sometimes cleaving very close to mine in almost skin-like contacct it felt like a direct connection, very direct, sometimes intense and i could not tell what parts of my mood were my own and which were some kind of emotional offcharge from this woman almost 10 years ago removed through time and set off in the air around me
I am incredibly hungry right now and feels good to recognize that, but also feel that it is making me write strangely/badly but also i feel like it's necessary to type this all out right now, in the name of like memory/document/"optimal truth" or optimal initial reaction to this book, or something, i don't want to be presumptuous at all but i feel like "megan boyle" would understand, as in the megan boyle i felt i knew from the screening and feel like i know from this book, very spiky and funny and loving and sort of cathartic-ally "unclean", in the same ways i feel like i am beginning to understand i am those things and that if i am not on my side, who is?
Felt towards the end hurtling towards, is there an ending here, will she be OK, will I be OK, will this book just be a long smooth length of general bleakness and then end, but in the last few pages, when boyle is full of rage, it feels like she is gathering herself... to be on her own side and carry herself with her and also end LIVEBLOG
Because of this book i have started my own document because typing vs journaling longhand as i have historically done feels also like it closes the boundary partially... like my internal voice is getting closer to bleeding into my fiction voice or i am optimizing both into the truest, sharpest point of VOICE
I like her so much i liked this book so much I like it better than anything tao lin has written and i think now i'm done w/ alt lit, i understand it and i understand what has forked off from it now into 2022 and so i can expunge and find my own thing alongside, away from. i am so happy megan boyle is OK and much more private and seemingly flourishing and it feels good, feels so hopeful, i don't feel the parasocial connection i felt at first but something unglued and like... Tandem, simultaneous
Only 2 highlights i made, for some reason:
[image error]
[image error]
I don't know if that will work
The afternoon after the night of mumblecore and post-mumblecore subsequent party after i had taken i think 1 adderall xr and 2 focalin ir each w/ brian, after we had had a night of (joyously shouting: BENDER!) BENDER! i think around 4-5 pm he left and on his way out the door he stuffed something soft and chemical-structured in my hand, it was the ring box foam, inside was a little thorny ring he had soldered as replacement for the ring i had given him, drunk, maybe the first week i knew him, it kept scratching me for the entire time i had it, sometimes i would bleed
Then he called and texted repeatedly until i saw my phone and ran down to unlock the apartment for him again because he had left the full contents of his pockets, wallet included, on the floor of my room, by the bed
This made me laugh and my best friend joel was acting very shocked, like, i was bouncing around and being "itchy" generally, word he uses, he asked me why i was so happy... i was invited to the mumblecore screening by him and his friend alex, i didn't know anything about the film and from the image of 2 people propping up a copy of infinite jest between them i expected something ironic, cold, but during the course of the film like almost immediately upon it started and was clearly a VLC file someone had pressed play on, v endearingly i thought, and the subtitles had tiny millisecond fades at the beginning and end of each sentence onscreen, it was so funny and sweet, the film was very genuinely warm, sad, tender, i was really affected and afterwards the lights came on with no credits and i was feeling really good, this was when i was just starting to be the more candid/open/self-reliant person that i have been since moving back out of 18 months in virginia, last summer/fall everything was seeming incredibly absurd and easy and playable, like moving through the city afterwards it felt like a game
I was talking to alex very openly and genuinely and he was responding with openness and genuineness, i thought: this is so good, and i will see brian tonight, he's somewhere partway on a >1 hour commute to see me, when he showed up he had a shot of fireball in a ring box that he gave me... the lip of the fireball was partway nudging out of the box, the box couldn't close completely around it. I had given the box to him the week before with an adderall xr pressed into the slit of the foam that was in the box. upon receiving the fireball from him i think i felt something utterly good and crazy. the foam was gone, i asked where the foam was. He said i would find out later.
Before this, which was at the party, the lights came on immediately post-mumblecore and megan boyle and jordan castro came out and began doing a q and a, which was very uncomfortable for me, all of the questions being asked felt very strange and rude because obviously the film was a very true document of part of boyle's life... but it seemed like all the questions were about her and pointed in a way that felt cutting and personal and also somewhat distanced in how personal they were, rather than about the movie... i remember feeling really uncomfortable but also liking her (megan boyle) so much and wanting to talk to her, there were things in the film like they were on the street "I hate everyone" "like everyone on the street" etc. that felt like an old mindset i had once worn and no longer identified with, and i liked that she seemed happy and nervous but also more confident and clearly so able to be warm/open/sincere even with the sorts of questions being asked and the unnatural overhang of the structure of: very personal film being shown and then subject/creator of the film appears in q and a directly after, i wished there was no q and a so i could leave afterward and be on the street and think about the movie myself
I wished i had seen it on a laptop, which i did for the second time, maybe 1-2 weeks ago while reading this book
I liked megan boyle so much, but didn't read this book until now, i have carried it/her mindvoice with me for all of march and it has felt heavy, valuable, sad, and comforting, it felt different than reading normally does like somehow some kind of pale transparent boundary that appears and i have to push through while entering reading or "reading state" normally didn't exist at all here, i read most of this book on my phone, i read the first i think 80 pages or something on the amazon.com LOOK INSIDE preview and then immediately borrowed the book on my phone library app, so i read it generally while doing the exact things she was describing doing and feeling less like i was reading than i don't know, communing, or feeling another life lived in parallel to mine and sometimes cleaving very close to mine in almost skin-like contacct it felt like a direct connection, very direct, sometimes intense and i could not tell what parts of my mood were my own and which were some kind of emotional offcharge from this woman almost 10 years ago removed through time and set off in the air around me
I am incredibly hungry right now and feels good to recognize that, but also feel that it is making me write strangely/badly but also i feel like it's necessary to type this all out right now, in the name of like memory/document/"optimal truth" or optimal initial reaction to this book, or something, i don't want to be presumptuous at all but i feel like "megan boyle" would understand, as in the megan boyle i felt i knew from the screening and feel like i know from this book, very spiky and funny and loving and sort of cathartic-ally "unclean", in the same ways i feel like i am beginning to understand i am those things and that if i am not on my side, who is?
Felt towards the end hurtling towards, is there an ending here, will she be OK, will I be OK, will this book just be a long smooth length of general bleakness and then end, but in the last few pages, when boyle is full of rage, it feels like she is gathering herself... to be on her own side and carry herself with her and also end LIVEBLOG
Because of this book i have started my own document because typing vs journaling longhand as i have historically done feels also like it closes the boundary partially... like my internal voice is getting closer to bleeding into my fiction voice or i am optimizing both into the truest, sharpest point of VOICE
I like her so much i liked this book so much I like it better than anything tao lin has written and i think now i'm done w/ alt lit, i understand it and i understand what has forked off from it now into 2022 and so i can expunge and find my own thing alongside, away from. i am so happy megan boyle is OK and much more private and seemingly flourishing and it feels good, feels so hopeful, i don't feel the parasocial connection i felt at first but something unglued and like... Tandem, simultaneous
Only 2 highlights i made, for some reason:
[image error]
[image error]
I don't know if that will work
The afternoon after the night of mumblecore and post-mumblecore subsequent party after i had taken i think 1 adderall xr and 2 focalin ir each w/ brian, after we had had a night of (joyously shouting: BENDER!) BENDER! i think around 4-5 pm he left and on his way out the door he stuffed something soft and chemical-structured in my hand, it was the ring box foam, inside was a little thorny ring he had soldered as replacement for the ring i had given him, drunk, maybe the first week i knew him, it kept scratching me for the entire time i had it, sometimes i would bleed
Then he called and texted repeatedly until i saw my phone and ran down to unlock the apartment for him again because he had left the full contents of his pockets, wallet included, on the floor of my room, by the bed
October 26, 2018
Oh yeah. This is the stuff.
March 14, 2024
Megan Boyles existens är så betryggande och bekräftande. Hon skriver ner ALLT. Det fula och fina och astråkiga. Och hon lever ett sjukt tråkigt liv för det mesta, men det gör dom allra flesta människorna så trots att jag blev uttråkad ganska ofta så kändes det väldigt härligt och relaterbart. Megan är också väldigt rolig och jag skrattade mycket, samtidigt mår hon väldigt dåligt för det mesta vilket gör mig ledsen. Hon tar t.ex. otroligt mycket droger. Men det var mycket vackert också, hennes relation till sina föräldrar berörde mig. Och kul med Tao Lin cameos! Även all dålig tv hon ser på var kul att läsa om.
Jag vet ej, eftersom hon skriver så intimt och ärligt känns det verkligen som att hon är min vän nu haha, jag har skapat en parasocial relation. Och jag älskar sociala media aspekten av det hela! Hon lajv bloggar ju allt så ibland ställer hon frågor till sina läsare, då känner jag mig delaktig. Jag älskar internet och kommer förevigt bojkotta det icke uppkopplade livet. Heja Megan, nu ska jag se på alla hennes youtube filmer.
Jag vet ej, eftersom hon skriver så intimt och ärligt känns det verkligen som att hon är min vän nu haha, jag har skapat en parasocial relation. Och jag älskar sociala media aspekten av det hela! Hon lajv bloggar ju allt så ibland ställer hon frågor till sina läsare, då känner jag mig delaktig. Jag älskar internet och kommer förevigt bojkotta det icke uppkopplade livet. Heja Megan, nu ska jag se på alla hennes youtube filmer.
Read
November 16, 2023I have to revisit this book later.
I'm only 4-5% in and I'm feeling a mixture of emotions, mostly bad, but a lot of good too.
The bad: I feel kind of dragged down by her inability to get things done and drug habits. I feel like I'm in a perpetual hangover.
The good: as always, Megan Boyle is hilarious and has her own special kind of logic and way of phrasing things. I love her Boylian logic and humor.
Maybe a good time to revisit this book will be when I feel undragdownable.
I'm only 4-5% in and I'm feeling a mixture of emotions, mostly bad, but a lot of good too.
The bad: I feel kind of dragged down by her inability to get things done and drug habits. I feel like I'm in a perpetual hangover.
The good: as always, Megan Boyle is hilarious and has her own special kind of logic and way of phrasing things. I love her Boylian logic and humor.
Maybe a good time to revisit this book will be when I feel undragdownable.
October 8, 2022
liveblog is deeply immersive, with it's own rhythms and beats. it takes on a quality that I've never seen in any other fiction or nonfiction narrative, which is that it's both boring and compulsive. it's probably these things because its ennui is deeply relatable, and the self destruction and neuroses that exist in the context that Megan Boyle provides is both very sad and compellingly human. it's an exhausting catalogue of all the nondramatic stuff that makes us us, but the compilation of that nondramatic stuff is bruising and when you place it all next to each other it...actually...feels..weirdly dramatic. you root for her because you're rooting for yourself, because you're in basically the same situation, I think, which is that you're lonely and all the daily things that we do make us feel more alienated and isolated. anyway: what Megan Boyle did was for a number of months she recorded her life in incredibly detailed. there are a lot of funny and smart things in here and also ugly truths and things that would embarrass us to admit. it took me forever to read and I felt exhausted by it, but I also feel really good now.
2nd read:
shocked this time by the how traditional the structure is, that through capturing real life it would skew closely to various tropes of romantic comedies, while subverting these ideas by expanding beyond them. ends on a down note because it has to, because it's NOT a redemption story because the redemption always had to happen off page. fascinating in a relentless way; would love to see another one of these from Megan Boyle every ten years, but that would probably do some kind of irreparable damage.
2nd read:
shocked this time by the how traditional the structure is, that through capturing real life it would skew closely to various tropes of romantic comedies, while subverting these ideas by expanding beyond them. ends on a down note because it has to, because it's NOT a redemption story because the redemption always had to happen off page. fascinating in a relentless way; would love to see another one of these from Megan Boyle every ten years, but that would probably do some kind of irreparable damage.
October 24, 2020
Pitchfork gave John Frusciante's first solo album a 0. Not because it was bad, but because it was basically unrateable. You might think it's a 10, you might think it's legitimately a 0. Either opinion was probably valid. It's so unlike anything else that you might like it, or you might not - but it sort of defies a traditional comparison.
This is how I feel about Liveblog. Like JF's album - it's deeply personal. Like the album - it wasn't necessarily meant to be published in this form (but, notably, both were also recorded -which says something). You could either think this is a masterpiece or you could think it's trash. I am closer to the former but it's not like I can compare it to anything else I've ever read.
I wish Goodreads gave the option to say I finished something without rating it. I didn't want to give it a 0 like Pitchfork. I split the difference I guess.
It's beyond post modern. I can't say I like the way it made me feel, because I didn't. I had to keep putting it down because it bummed me out. There's no beginning middle or end. Megan doesn't grow. She's not supposed to.
But no one has ever published anything with more of a voice. It's dumb to call it brave or heroic or anything like that - cheesy stuff. But it is absolutely an accomplishment. I have to think about it more.
This is how I feel about Liveblog. Like JF's album - it's deeply personal. Like the album - it wasn't necessarily meant to be published in this form (but, notably, both were also recorded -which says something). You could either think this is a masterpiece or you could think it's trash. I am closer to the former but it's not like I can compare it to anything else I've ever read.
I wish Goodreads gave the option to say I finished something without rating it. I didn't want to give it a 0 like Pitchfork. I split the difference I guess.
It's beyond post modern. I can't say I like the way it made me feel, because I didn't. I had to keep putting it down because it bummed me out. There's no beginning middle or end. Megan doesn't grow. She's not supposed to.
But no one has ever published anything with more of a voice. It's dumb to call it brave or heroic or anything like that - cheesy stuff. But it is absolutely an accomplishment. I have to think about it more.
January 9, 2021
I love this monster beast
July 30, 2024
Really really awesome book first in so long that’s had me anything big feelings style like come believing no matter how bleak it is and you’re often thinking wow this is bleak you always spend more time kinda just doing whatever and going to the store and having silly observations about things and it’s fine.
Spent a lot of time reading wondering if I would’ve been friends with my mom or need to do more/less drugs or like do anything creative or something and also felt affirmed in moving to a new city to not really do anything different but be in a different place and somehow it is different. Feel like I know like a silly amount about Megan Boyle now hope she’s feeling better and also I liked how this book made me think about how I’m spending/not spending my time so exhaustively and self-indulgently that it stopped feeling like not those things I guess but maybe that’s self-important but I think this book is like the Bible of that in the best way really really good
Spent a lot of time reading wondering if I would’ve been friends with my mom or need to do more/less drugs or like do anything creative or something and also felt affirmed in moving to a new city to not really do anything different but be in a different place and somehow it is different. Feel like I know like a silly amount about Megan Boyle now hope she’s feeling better and also I liked how this book made me think about how I’m spending/not spending my time so exhaustively and self-indulgently that it stopped feeling like not those things I guess but maybe that’s self-important but I think this book is like the Bible of that in the best way really really good
January 14, 2022
I related so much to this book. I know exactly what it feels like to feel pressure to get things done and not get anything done and going on that loop, which I feel like is basically what the whole book is about in a way. The fact that the authors Instagram is private after spending so much time basically in her brain is tortuous to me because I need to know what’s going on with her now.
September 24, 2024
"Depressed despite yoga today and Chelsea last night. Not really depressed. More guilty and calm... calmly resigning to... just... being me, the room I live in, memories, present circumstances, aging, all the people I've know, all the others. It's almost July."
Thank you, Megan Boyle. Hope you're having a good day.
Thank you, Megan Boyle. Hope you're having a good day.
January 7, 2019
best most exciting book of the fucking year
November 21, 2021
Brilliant and often hilarious, Boyle shows how interesting and enjoyable the mundane can be.
June 15, 2022
much literary merit. indictment of american readers' desire for author identity in contemporary writing.
May 6, 2020
one of the best books i've ever read
April 20, 2019
what a fucking amazing novel.
December 19, 2018
You know a book has done something monumental when it has completely changed the way you perceive your waking life and how writing can be used to relate it. Thank you Megan Boyle for giving us this interesting and sometimes fourth dimensional glimpse into your life in 2013. I hope that this book is widely read and brings Boyle lots of success!
January 21, 2019
I knew from the outset of starting to read this, I got that the initial energy and thoroughness wouldn’t be sustained. Nothing goes on forever, so logically I knew there would be a point where it would devolve and end . . . Like most books. Thing is, this isn’t like most books. Logically I knew, but emotionally, I became so invested that I would find myself thinking around midway, this is the best. This has to go on. This can’t stop. I don’t want to reach the end. I don’t want it to come apart. I don’t want to get close to the end. What ends is access. Access to the author. It starts to slow down, the portal gets hazy, and you have to question yourself as a reader, do I even have the right to ask for more? Probably not. We can want more, but Boyle’s already given so much, we can’t really ask.
It is like a full on immersion. I see another reviewer called it addictive. That’s true. It is also infectious. In the moments you aren’t reading you carry Megan with you. You think about the observations she would have. She starts to narrate your own life, which is like kind of hilarious that it seeps out of the book like that.
Definitely interesting concept. Beyond conceptual though, it is sad, funny, and the setting is rich. The author’s world/environment comes through in full relief. What a weird and wonderful book.
It is like a full on immersion. I see another reviewer called it addictive. That’s true. It is also infectious. In the moments you aren’t reading you carry Megan with you. You think about the observations she would have. She starts to narrate your own life, which is like kind of hilarious that it seeps out of the book like that.
Definitely interesting concept. Beyond conceptual though, it is sad, funny, and the setting is rich. The author’s world/environment comes through in full relief. What a weird and wonderful book.
June 20, 2019
This book is a wild “telepathy-lit” hunk of autobiography. It feels like that thing where you tape a movie from TV onto VHS but you pause the recording during commercial breaks as a favor to your future self but then when you find this VHS 15 years later and watch it, you’re very upset that the commercials are missing. The commercials were maybe the best part. This book is like a memoir with all the “commercial breaks” left in.
My favorite bits were Megan Boyle having “normal conversations” with people that work at Fedex or gas stations or grocery stores. She’s great at scripted social interaction and it’s clear she enjoys it and she captures it really well. I could read a lot more “Megan Boyle talking to employees at the all-night Fedex.”
This book is crazy long (and definitely felt like it sometimes) but I was sad when it was over. I liked living in Megan Boyle’s brain. I don’t know who I would recommend this book to. It feels like an important historical document but wow gosh definitely not for everyone. I hope people in the future will read this and think that this is how people used to be; the truth is that nobody else is like this. Way better than the “Diary of Samuel Pepys.”
My favorite bits were Megan Boyle having “normal conversations” with people that work at Fedex or gas stations or grocery stores. She’s great at scripted social interaction and it’s clear she enjoys it and she captures it really well. I could read a lot more “Megan Boyle talking to employees at the all-night Fedex.”
This book is crazy long (and definitely felt like it sometimes) but I was sad when it was over. I liked living in Megan Boyle’s brain. I don’t know who I would recommend this book to. It feels like an important historical document but wow gosh definitely not for everyone. I hope people in the future will read this and think that this is how people used to be; the truth is that nobody else is like this. Way better than the “Diary of Samuel Pepys.”
February 19, 2019
At first, after a couple of pages in, this book was just an interesting and somewhat shocking viewport into the life of an incredibly dysfunctional person (no offence Mego). It was uncomfortable tbh, to like, know all this stuff about someone straight up; skipping all the social foreplay and jumping right into a settled relationship. It was gross in the beginning, like, FFS Megan, please take a shower.
However, overtime you get to know Megan, and this read transforms into more of a 'hanging out' than a distanced voyeuristic spectacle.
This book was an absolute pleasure to read and I'd recommend it to anyone thats in a reading slump. So easy to pick up, but at the same time easy to take a break from.
I'd be riding the train to work whilst Megan contemplates life in her car. I'd be lying in bed whilst Megan is making a green juice or snorting heroin. As some other reviewers have said, this book will have wondering from time to time, 'what is Megan up to now?'
Basically...buy this book and hangout with Megan, she's your new, personal dysfunctional best friend. 10/10 experience.
However, overtime you get to know Megan, and this read transforms into more of a 'hanging out' than a distanced voyeuristic spectacle.
This book was an absolute pleasure to read and I'd recommend it to anyone thats in a reading slump. So easy to pick up, but at the same time easy to take a break from.
I'd be riding the train to work whilst Megan contemplates life in her car. I'd be lying in bed whilst Megan is making a green juice or snorting heroin. As some other reviewers have said, this book will have wondering from time to time, 'what is Megan up to now?'
Basically...buy this book and hangout with Megan, she's your new, personal dysfunctional best friend. 10/10 experience.
May 3, 2023
Amazing idea and execution, incredibly hilarious and consistently endearing. Nobody has ever committed to the bit this hard. I am really happy that it exists. However, it has one fatal flaw: it is boring. That is the whole point of the book and there's no way it could have been otherwise but the point remains that it is in fact boring to read. I was bored. I am 400 pages into this 700 page book and I am giving up because it's boring. It's still funny and still endearing but it's literally just someone else's life. It's like My Struggle without the bite. It kind of works because Megan Boyle's life is a strange mix of really interesting and really boring, and if it was too far in either direction it wouldn't work at all, but I find myself not wanting to read 300 more pages of the same thing. I would really recommend the first like 200 pages though. After that you get the point.
October 8, 2022
an all-timer. on the mount rushmore of lotto pod books.
February 4, 2019
"Trout, that's the fish".
This book is very special. I tore through the first 500 pages and found myself savoring the last because I never wanted it to end. It is so honest. I laughed out loud, I cried in private. A rare and perfect book.
This book is very special. I tore through the first 500 pages and found myself savoring the last because I never wanted it to end. It is so honest. I laughed out loud, I cried in private. A rare and perfect book.
February 22, 2019
Liveblog of me finishing this book: I felt very emotional. Unconsciously brought the book to my lips, wondered what I was doing, stopped doing that, gazed into its cover, felt emotional, then brought it to my lips again. OK that was weird. Sadly put the book down. What a great book.
September 29, 2019
So good
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