Party Girl

So after reading another volume of Fables and a Tim Sale Superman HB, I finally decided to take a break from my norm and read Anna David's Party Girl.  I thought it was going to be a typical chic-lit book, which would have made it a totally new experience for me, but it turned out to be an addiction memoir dressed up as chick lit.  There wasn't even much sex beyond the opening chapter, which was obviously meant to shock, but our heroine did about 10,000 lines of cocaine, so I suppose it all balances out.  I mean, it WAS depraved, just not in a sexual way.  What it REALLY showed was how insane a person can be if they listen too closely to their inner monologue.  David's protagonist is so concerned with being "bitchy and fabulous" that she ruins her life--twice!--trying to put on a show that people will want to watch.  It was a weird perspective but plenty entertaining, and anyway, it looks so difficult and confusing to be a girl that the story itself didn't seem at all far-fetched.

At the base of Party Girl is a common "I can have it all" kind of question: How can a girl be sexy and accessible AND successful and empowered all at the same time?  I mean, TV and magazines make it look necessary, important, and even EFFORTLESS, but the reality is that no one person can be everything.  And like I said, I've personally never felt the need to be all that stuff, but then again, I've never been a 17-year-old girl looking at Britney Spears as an even inadvertent role-model.

Eh.  I don't want to get into a rant about the impossible-ness of "having it all" but look, even a cursory glance at that phrase ought to hint at its impossibility.  Still, we live in a society that seems unable to make choices, so the story here isn't surprising.  It was just a window into the insecurities that breed that base desire.  I have my insecurities for sure but feeling like I'm not good enough because I'm somehow not fabulous enough isn't one of them, thankfully.  Now when someone writes a book about trying to be an awesome triathlete, dad, and engineer all at the same time, that one'll get me where it counts.