Raven Smith’s Trivial Pursuits

by Raven Smith

’Instagram’s answer to David Sedaris.’ ST STYLE MAGAZINE ’Irresistibly readable’ DOLLY ALDERTON ’You’ll laugh. You’ll cry.’ LENA DUNHAM A hilarious, smart and incredibly singular debut from Raven Smith, whose exploration of the minutiae of everyday modern life and culture is totally unique and painfully relatable. Is being tall a social currency? Am I the contents of my fridge? Does yoga matter if you’re not filthy rich? Is a bagel four slices of bread? Are three cigarettes a meal? From IKEA meatballs to minibreaks, join Raven Smith as he reflects on the importance we place in the least important things and our frivolous attempts to accomplish and attain. He also tackles his single-parent upbringing, his struggles as a lonely teenager and his personal experience of coming out.
 
Packed with brilliant humour, great tenderness and lingering pathos, Raven Smith’s Trivial Pursuits is a book for anyone who has ever asked ‘when I get to the pearly gates of heaven, will a viral tweet count for or against my entry?’

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays, Audiobook, Humor, 21st Century

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Dani · Rating 3 out of 5]

The good news is that if you’re ever at a loss for a simile, you can open any page of this book to find one. This book is like a long Instagram caption: usually side-splitting, bursting with things au courant, and short on substance.

Each brief essay explores some aspect of the minutiae of everyday life—the trivial pursuits, yes, duh. Smith derides their importance while acknowledging they’re often the only thing propping us all up in this life. For those who like pop culture there will be plenty of Easter eggs to keep things interesting amidst the general onslaught of witty anecdotes. And if you don’t eat internet for breakfast you likely won’t be able to understand any of it.

I will say, not sure who edited this? But surely he could have crowdsourced the edit and had fewer errors. Although, eventually, even that became part of the charm.

[Rosemary Standeven · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really struggled with this book. It sounded great when I read the blurb, and the first page grabbed my attention with its witty sentences. But, the second page (and the third and …) was a repeat – not of the words, they were different – but of the whole wittiness for the sake of wittiness. I normally enjoy stream of consciousness, but this was trying too hard. I was also not in the right mood for inanity – and this book had it in spades. I got up to 25% and had to stop. Left it for several months, hoping that when I returned I would be in a better place, to give the book the attention it deserved. No such luck. I hate not finishing books, but at 26% I felt I had no choice.
The author is clearly talented. Some of his one-liners are superb. But, a solid mass of one-liners does not make easy reading. For example, the following quotes all appeared within a couple of pages (it really does not matter what the contexts were):

“You fit with them like O.J. Simpson’s hands in the gloves before he walked to freedom like Nelson Mandela.”

“each one is agony, dragging like a corpse across a carpet of pure friction.”

“I must sound like the Mad Hatter on speed. Memories light the corners of my mind, but the edges are frayed like Vetements jeans as I wring personal narrations from my damp-towel memory.”

If you want a book where you can read a page a day for some light relief – this is a book for you. But as a novel to read cover to cover, it just did not work for me.
Goodbye, Raven Smith, and I hope other readers are more appreciative of your efforts.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

[Ella · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a big fan of Raven’s witty one liners, but that’s why they work.

They’re one liners.

My brain was frazzled after reading a chapter. Each sentence is crammed.

His journey on how it came to write the book and gather the thoughts was interesting though.

[Andrew Gott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did this book have an editor?

Or was the brief to write an entire book of similes?

[Hani Thapa]

One too many similes.

[Margaret Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Upon finishing this book I was surprised to see so many 2/3 star reviews... I think that all of the reviews about this book not being a conventional novel and being a book of “one liners” are accurate and yet personally I don’t see why either of those comments should be taken as negatives. Trivial Pursuits is a hilarious stream of consciousness that manages to be both laughably aspirational and unquestionably relatable at the same time. A brilliantly witty way to start a gloomy New Year; can’t wait to read more from Raven in the future!

[Derick Cursino · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually like essays but this one feels like he literally vomited some random train of thought and just went along with it. Not the best.

[Jordan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tried to read multiple times but I can’t do it. It’s paragraphs and paragraphs of one liners that may work for a tweet or clever IG caption but not as a book. It’s exhausting to read — couldn’t finish it unfortunately.

[Nic · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved this book; funny, sharp, sarcastic and observationally accurate.

Only dropped a star because the writing style is a bit full on so you have to read just a few chapters at a time.

Recommended.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve had this on audiobook in the background while working today, and once I’d finished for the day I found it quite difficult to the last 90 minutes of it.

Raven Smith’s Trivial Pursuits is funny and sharp at points, and great discussions about gender stereotyping, sexuality and the spaces associated with different sexualities. BUT for me, that was overshadowed with a sense of preachiness and a hefty dose of bougie. It felt like a huge indulgence of Smith and while it was fine to have on in the background it didn’t blow me away.

[Hanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jag tycker att Raven Smith är väldigt, väldigt rolig. Hans populärkulturella spaningar är alltid spot-on, hans balans mellan självutplåning och självförtroende är underhållande och hans kreativa liknelser är imponerande. I boken blir det dock lite för mycket av det senare, och jag saknar ett djup. Boken är som bäst när det blir lite sårbart, när det finns ett konkret händelseförlopp att följa och när man får lära känna författaren. Mitt favoritkapitel var Notes from the Brink i vilket Raven Smith så fint beskriver sin syn på livet – som jag verkligen känner igen mig i:
"You need a little magic to get you through and I’m complicit in my own coercion. Realists are the most depressed for this exact reason. It’s hard to like yourself when you’re being brutally honest. It’s hard to like anything really. You have to say you have Titanic personality and let that float out across the sea. Fuck the icebergs. Life is a confidence trick, literally tricking yourself into confidence and pretending you have enough lifeboats."

Och ett till citat, som både fångar bokens tematik och Smiths omisskännliga stil:
"Emails are never truly urgent. Things that are urgent: towels when you get out the bath; chinese food when you’re hungover; diet Coke when you’re thirsty; Jesus’s cross at the crucifixion, or a coffin at a normal funeral; mini quiches at a wake; butter on a jacket potato the moment it comes out of the oven; extra security protocols; unlimited patience at Heathrow Terminal 5; Advil PM on a long-haul flight; and Toblerones from duty free."

[Mary McCartan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as I adore Raven Smith and his genius ability to lay out a generation bare like no other, this read as an intense stream of conscious that as each chapter ended left me feeling frazzled. I think each essay was too jam-packed and it made it difficult to get to the core of them all. It started off well and the first couple chapters I specifically liked but I got bored. I’m looking forward to more work by him and I love his voice but I think the cultural commentary in this style works better as a snappy column.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bloody funny! Loved this, I knew Raven from Twitter mostly and already knew he was funny but really enjoyed these essays. The perfect little antidote to all the heavy stuff I've been reading lately. Despite the "trivial" title, I found there was a lot of depth and layers under all the humour and mundanity (I mean mundanity in a nice way ha! I just mean the content was very quotidian).

[Charlotte Dunne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best read in multiple sittings - the prose / song lyric drop ins / analogies are much funnier in small doses. Diminishing marginal returns otherwise. Made me laugh out loud at times though.

[Ariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of great lines and some decent critique but overall a bit too low on substance and far too high on analogies

[Lizz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weird mix of exhausting and frothy at the same time.

[Helen Chen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing like when you buy an icecream but the whole scoop falls onto the pavement. Very chaotic like reading an entire book of all-caps tweets. Far too many similes.

[Hannah Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this. Perfect lighthearted and funny read. Listened to the audiobook read by the author- would highly recommend listening.

[Lucy Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Raven pls less similes

[Emily Thompson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read a review recently about this book that said ‘some lines made you feel it was worth reading, then exhaustion sets in and you realise you’ve read two pages without processing a single word’ and I couldn’t agree more. Every other sentence is a simile and there is so much crammed into every line that it is a very tricky book to read. It is a shame because I really love Raven Smith and find his one liners hilarious but they just didn’t work in book form for me

[Shakira Twigden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I honestly couldn't get into it or retain any of the copy, I think I missed the traditional plot of a book. It feel like I was reading his train of thought, which at times was funny but also quite frustrating.

[Jamie Malorni · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a collection of essays, some were outstanding and others were a little harder to get through. Overall, the author's modern take on society really resonated with me. I enjoyed the different ways the author contextualized our relationship with social media throughout the book.

Raven Smith delivered some brilliant oneliners and modern-day similies. I'm happy to have this book for those zingers alone! However, I found some of the writing a bit clumsy and hard to get through. I'm a slow reader so I found myself rereading passages on multiple occasions. Since I had to break my flow often, I'm not giving it full marks.

Looking forward to seeing more of Raven Smith's takes on Instagram, Vogue columns and in future publications.

[Robinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is clearly written for the author's own circles, friends, and family's camaraderie. It's flabbergasting to see this book becoming a Sunday Times bestseller. I just can't fathom why it even piques anybody's interest. Does everyone buy the book because the book is on sale? At least that's why I did.

Imho, It's exquisite to be funny, but trying too desperately while using expressions that are only understood by his fellow citizens of the same country is a whole other thing. To make matters worse... It's not even funny most of the time...

I finish a lot of books every year, I'm sure this will not be one of them, not today, not henceforth. Page 20 is the further I'm willing to go for. It's torturing to read.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 to be more specific. Unhinged, chaotic, and witty (almost too much so sometimes) and rife with pop culture references of the cosmopolitan. It’s a fun read with lots of quotes that are terrible but very true:

“Kids are kind of lowbrow in their tastes”
“Like most people, I want to be even hotter because hotness is like social currency more valuable than free drinks tickets or the euro”
“I want the faux-trauma of being thought of as just a pretty face even though I read the New Yorker”


The book is mainly about focusing on -trivial pursuits- while there are much bigger, more important things going on in the world. It’s a self-indulgent and fun read, good for vacation.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the book (although at times exhausting to read smilies and metaphor one after the other). It felt like you were reading someones scrambled thoughts and a book and chapters I want to revisit. Also a great book to read out loud, Mike and Hector would agree. Had some lovely quarantine reads with my feet out the window reading this book and a lot of his thoughts resonate with my own, although at times very scrambled.

Not like any book I have read before. Great for extending my vocabulary too, some real trinkets in there that I cannot wait to incorporate into small talk.

[covertocoverwithcarina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Net Galley and 4th Estate.

I thought this book was really funny and witty in parts and some of the essays I enjoyed more than others (What if Jennifer Aniston Isn't sad? being one of my favourites). I did laugh out loud at some of the anecdotes and I enjoyed reading about the Author's relationship with his husband and how it has changed over the course of their relationship.

That being said, I did struggle to get through the book at times as it seemed to ramble on in parts. I could only digest a few essays at a time and read a few each day.

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forest Gumps’ mother was wrong. Life is nothing like a box of chocolates, it’s more like drunk-biting into a kebab on the nightbus.

Raven Smith’s Trivial Pursuits: Raven’s hilarious, smart and incredibly singular debut. Mini essay explorations (written exclusively in smilies and metaphors) of the minutiae of everyday modern life and pop culture that is totally unique, yet painfully relatable.

An onslaught of witty anecdotes that had me reading passages aloud to my boyfriend or anyone who would listen.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trying to say this kindly. I am really proud of myself for finishing this book because there were loads of points where I wanted to quit. I felt it was too early in 2021 for a DNF in my 2021 challenge. This book is a slog, with a few poignant moments in which Raven's intelligent takes on class, race, wealth and sexuality are not overburdened by trending slang from Internet culture. I am glad I did not buy this book (was a library borrow), but some may do so and find his writing charming. As other reviewers have noted, many weird typos which a good editor should have corrected.

[Tertia Rollason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Judging by the title and various descriptions of this book, I anticipated a relatable and satirical ride through everyday trivialities. There were moments where I laughed out loud, mostly in the first few pages. Yet, these moments were few and far between, and the more I read, I found Smith's writing incredibly monotonous, filled with self-indulged one-liners. The writing style was hard to engage with and not as quick-witted as promised. All in all, I think this book is a marmite read - not suited to everyone.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I set myself a goal of reading one chapter a week of this book (never had to do this before). I felt utter accomplishment when I finally finished! I defy anyone to properly digest these pages at a normal reading pace. Each line is crammed with hyperbole, jokes, observation, sarcasm....it's too much. Some lines are hilarious and make you feel like there is more worth reading. Then exhaustion sets in and you realise you've read two pages without processing a single word. It's a shame because Raven seems like an interesting character with funny observations.