My first NetGalley book// thank you NetGalley !

I felt this book was pretty good for what is was and I enjoyed reading it ! I thought Kirke was a very funny narrator and the prose was engaging and easy to read. I thought that the stories were really interesting and juicy and textured -- it's definitely interesting to read about how the wealthy and bohemian lived in the late 90s early 2000s  New York, both the glamourous and painful parts. I think Kirke's reflections in how she fit in to this family and the world were interesting and accessible. The dysfunctional rich kid shenanigans were fun, juicy, and at times even emotional to read about, which Kirke seems to understand, even though she does at times seem to be up her own ass (or up her families ass, at least). I liked the veneer being taken off of the three bohemian sisters the Kirke's have been presented as in media, and getting an inside view, though I wish the book had gone a little further with it. I also liked how the book tapped into a specific sort of millennial rich hipsterness , like her recounting of her Bard college years, her indie acting career (hi Greta G and Noah B!) and how she finally finds herself in Nashville amidst the cowboy cosplay trend of the late 2010s (I appreciate that she seems self aware about her place in country music!). The sections about her half  brother and the essay about her longtime nanny Rose were particularly good and emotional standouts.

However I felt that the book took a while to find its groove. I admit that I found myself rolling my eyes a lot at the beginning of the book-- there's only so many times that you can say your family is privileged yet beautifully broken and I felt it took a while to get to actual examples of this. Thankfully, the book gets into showing rather than telling later on.

I also found it strange that even though Lola is repeatedly forthcoming about her family's wealth and privilege, she obscures where their wealth actually comes from. She talks about how her father was a member of a sucessful rock band (that I've never heard of but I digress) but not that he descends from British landed gentry. She mentions her mother is the owner of a fabulous New York boutique, but not that her father was a billionaire real estate investor. It's not like I expect Lola to produce an itemized list of what each of her ancestors did to produce this wealth, but since she spends so much of the book reckoning with her privilege, I think it's a little dishonest to go on as if her parents were just very successful artists, rather than generational members of the British upper class that allowed them to pursue the arts. This makes snobbish comments that Kirke's mother makes throughout the book make a lot more sense! I saw another review on here that claimed that Kirke's parents came from working class backgrounds. They very much did not, and the fact that someone could walk away from this book believing that is part of the reason it's disingenuous to not be  forthcoming about the source of wealth especially when you are posturing as if your actually being self aware about class and privilege. 

I feel like this is similar to an issue I had later on in the book -- Lola wear June Carters dress when she performs at the Grand Ole Opry, a fact she repeats several times for comic effect, but never says how or why she came to wear the dress. The fact that she doesn't disclose it makes me feel like she bought it at auction Kim K -Marilyn Monroe dress style, rather than it being bestowed or leant to her. I wish she has explained it because it just felt weird and like she was trying to hide something that she didn't! 

I also found the structure of this book to be confusing. It's broken up into several numbered and titled parts, and within those parts are several titled sections that are somewhere between chapters and essays. I didn't feel like any of these really functioned like standalone essays though, except for possibly the very moving part about Lola's disabled half brother that she didn't know about until she was a teenager. I also found it confusing that the book seemed to start off chronologically , and then seemed to jump around later on. This was especially confusing since the book was so short, less than 200 pages. I think this book could have benefitted from stronger editorial guidance on structure and that the "not a memoir" subtitle was sort of slapped on to explain this away. 

definitely one of the best ‘autobiographies’ i’ve ever read wow!!