If you are lying in bed right now, a pint of ice cream in one hand, a bottle of scotch in the other, and this book clenched between your teeth (one tooth is missing from last night's bar fight), with tears streaming down your face over how much you loved, loved, loved your ex, let me commend you on how well you are coping. You could be doing so much worse. So much worse. You could be beheading your ex, or castrating strangers, or starting an exciting new life with a sex doll. You Are A Hero. In It Ended Badly, New York Observer columnist Jennifer Wright guides you through thirteen of the worst breakups of notable figures in history from Emperor Nero (sadist, murderer several times over), to Viennese artist Oskar Kokoschka (he of the aforementioned sex doll), to Norman Mailer (public stabbing). With her conversational tone and considerable wit, Wright digs deep into the archives to bring these terrible breakups to life. It's fun, pop history that educates, entertains, and really puts your own bad breakup behavior into perspective.
It Ended Badly is for anyone who's loved and lost and maybe sent one too many ill-considered, late-night emails to their ex reminding us that no matter how badly we've behaved, no one is as bad as Henry VIII.
This was good! I wasn't sure at the start, because it's pretty clear the author geared her narrative towards women (or men, but really, women) who were battling their way through breakups while reading this book. But it's easy to get past that and just enjoy the history and the wry humour. And omg were these people awful. You expect Nero to be horrible, but - and maybe it's just my general ignorance of Roman history, but not this weirdly horrible. And Oskar Kokoschka... holy cheese whiz weird, although I think I found it even more bizarre that everybody let him get away with his flavour of weird without seemingly batting an eye. By the time you get to Norman Mailer, his horribleness almost seems bland by comparison. Almost.
This is popular history in its purest form, but it's lively and entertaining while it's being informative. The source list at the end is a little web-link heavy for my taste, but I'm going with it; I learned a lot and little of it had to do with how these people broke up with their exes.
I have this in print, but borrowed the audio from the library and while I was a bit hesitant about the narrator at the beginning, I soon changed my mind. Hillary Huber's performance starts off sounding a bit monotone, but I soon found it works really well with Wright's wry humour and occasional sass. I particularly enjoyed her narration in the car as it was both calming and often hilarious.
I definitely recommend this (in audio or print) if you're looking for light, breezy and educational.
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11 December, 2017:
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11 December, 2017:
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11 December, 2017:
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