About two years ago I was browsing through Spotify looking for different music to submerge myself in. As I was looking, I stumbled across an artist named George Watsky. His spoken word/audible rap style really stood out to me. He was an artist who had meaning behind his lyrics and oh did they pack a punch. As I listened to all his albums available I fell in love. After months of only listening to him, I had to find out more! Then came the discovery of his book, How to Ruin Everything. I immediately went out and bought the book and dug in. The first thing I noticed and am going to take away from this book is his style and attitude that comes across through it. When reading this book, it feels like you’re sitting down with Watsky and he’s just telling you stories about his life. You feel as if you’re right there with him and that y’all are friends. It’s so casual and relatable I think that is a really important detail in writing styles like this. The order of the stories seemed random as well which added to the ‘just a casual conversation between two old friends’ vibe.
Another thing I took away from this book was how to tell a personal story and make it interesting to others. Everyone goes through life and collects a bunch of memories, but what constitutes them to be good enough to share? Let alone write an entire book filled with them? When reading this book it seems like just a collection of funny, odd or heartwarming stories that happened to Watsky throughout his life so far, but then when reading and thinking deeper you see that each story isn’t just an event being told, it’s a part of Watsky being shared. I think the meaning behind it was to help the reader further understand who Watsky is as a person and show that through how he deals and reacts in situations.
The final thing that I took away while reading was the whole collection of essays thing was not as effective for me. I would’ve much rather had one or two of the stories told but told more in-depth and more like a story. I think if they were more in depth they would have been more effective. For example, the story “Crying & Baseball” would have been really interesting if it was elongated. The meaning of learning and being confident is very important and if it was longer I think it would’ve been more effective. I learned that different styles of writing come in handy in different situations. With the more whimsical stories, a shorter length is good, but when it comes to the more impactful and stories that carry more of a message, a little more length is effective.
Another thing I took away from this book was how to tell a personal story and make it interesting to others. Everyone goes through life and collects a bunch of memories, but what constitutes them to be good enough to share? Let alone write an entire book filled with them? When reading this book it seems like just a collection of funny, odd or heartwarming stories that happened to Watsky throughout his life so far, but then when reading and thinking deeper you see that each story isn’t just an event being told, it’s a part of Watsky being shared. I think the meaning behind it was to help the reader further understand who Watsky is as a person and show that through how he deals and reacts in situations.
The final thing that I took away while reading was the whole collection of essays thing was not as effective for me. I would’ve much rather had one or two of the stories told but told more in-depth and more like a story. I think if they were more in depth they would have been more effective. For example, the story “Crying & Baseball” would have been really interesting if it was elongated. The meaning of learning and being confident is very important and if it was longer I think it would’ve been more effective. I learned that different styles of writing come in handy in different situations. With the more whimsical stories, a shorter length is good, but when it comes to the more impactful and stories that carry more of a message, a little more length is effective.