your voice in my head. emma forrest. (282)

after reading namedropper, i googled about emma forrest to discover if she really dated a famous uk rockstar when she was younger (i didn't discover anything).  i did discover that emma watson was set to portray her in her memoir, your voice inside my head.  so i decided to check it out.  and i have to say that i am glad i did.

to start, i have noticed that i have started to read a lot of female narratives that fall into this like hbo girls kind of vein of life, white privilege with some kind of trauma that results in messy life, oh and they are writers which is why i am reading them.  i don't know what this genre would be called but it includes emma forrest, lena dunham, sloane crosley, sheila heti, emily gould, and caitlin moran.  i enjoy the works, though they started to resemble each other, for example, when forrest talked about her mother's previous marriage, i confused it with crosley's story about discovering her mom's previous marriage.  they are all great works, but they all seem to be a similar type of girl that wrote this; white, privileged, well-educated, artistic, and some kind of sexual trauma.  i have no issues with their white privilege, just something i observed, and though i am of color, i can still identify with them.

your voice in my head discussed forrest's depression along with her lost of her psychiatrist, he passed away, and also her lover, GH (short for gypsy husband), he ran away from commitment.  though at times it reads like a gossip column since GH was famous,  the work is more of a tribute to her psychiatrist, dr. r.

several chapters close with a testimonal from his patients or friends of patients, about how he saved their lives or the loved ones' lives.  he sounded like an amazing person, caring, non-judgmental and truly worked towards his patients improving.  reading forrest's descriptions of him, made me wish, he was my psychiatrist. forrest went to dr. r during a very dark period in her life, she was depressed and damaging her body through sex and cutting. before, i go on, i have to say i admire forrest for her honesty in this work.  she shared very intimate and painful details.  though, forrest had started seeing him, she attempted suicide.  we then see her road to better mental health and a long a way a lot is revealed.  she was raped as a teen, something she denied for a while.  we also see what a great and caring (and musical loving) dr. r was.

forrest's live seemed to up on the up, when she got involved with GH.  while googling to see if the author that dr. r hated was salman rushdie, i discovered that GH was colin farrell! which kind of ruined the book because i kept on picturing him which i guess was the case.  i also felt bad cos i was like really? her which is what forrest had to constantly read about on gossip blogs. but yeah colin farrell, and can i just add i want to be wooed by someone with money! i mean random trips around the world! must be nice!  so farrell is a we-man (remember in satc when samantha falls for that guy who is always saying we this, we that), talking about the future and even going so far has saying he wants a child and naming her pearl and buying pearl a rabbit fur coat!  but like the we-man of satc, they constantly use we because they are trying to convince themselves that they are not afraid of commitment, but they are.  farrell broke up with her and cold-heartedly moved on with his life.

forrest again at rock bottom, but this time had no one to turn to because dr. r had passed away from lung cancer, something he didn't share with his parents.  forrest became depressed and tried to find closure with his death and with GH leaving her.  in the end, she starts to listen to dr. r's voice in her head and moved on.

quick sidenote, forrest met with dr. r's wife in an attempt to come to turns with his death. it seemed horrible and selfish to be considering that yes she lost her doctor but his wife lost her husband.  but i guess the wife knew her husband's line of practice and was surprisingly as kind and sweet as her husband for helping forrest though she had the larger burden to bear.

this was a great work, kind of like a modern day the bell jar.  again, i admire forrest for her honesty and doctors like dr. r for helping those in need.  this book easily could have annoyed me like eat,

pray, love, gilbert did have a blurb in the back, but forrest wasn't self-righteous in her need to share her story.

speaking of blurbs, i loved that florence from florence and the machine had a blurb on the back about the book!

last but not least, if you read this, which i recommend before the film comes out, i would go for the book with the ophelia cover.  i love the anecdote that opened the book, though it was sad.  i have to add i see viv from namedropper salt and vinegar crisps eating came from forrest herself.

namedropper. emma forrest. (273)

for 2015, i decided to do book riot's "read harder" challenge.  one of the challenges is to read a book that someone wrote when they were under the age of 25.  lucky for me, flavorpill had a post about authors who published great books before the age of 25.  this is how i discovered emma forrest and namedropper.  the flavorpill blurb nameddropped tavi gevinson and lena dunham and so of course i had to read this.  furthermore, it mentioned that the book came out when forrest was being called "the teenage 'voice of her generation'".

i have to say that if i read this back in 1998, i would have been obsessed with emma forrest and namedropper.  i really wish i would have found it in high school, like i stumbled upon blake nelson's girl.  i mean the cover would have won me over.  oh well.  adult me read it and loved it, but not as much as teenage me would have.

namedropper follows the life of teenager viv cohen.  viv was obsessed with old hollywood, best friends with a druggy hot girl, treena, and an aging pop star, ray, and was raised by her gay uncle.  (i would have loved to have been raised by a gay uncle!)  the heart of the story is one night, she met the opening act for ray, a boy named drew, his band named "kindness of strangers" (which is cute now that i think about it. lol) viv and i have the same taste in men because i would have been all about drew.  scrawny, pale kid, artsy, bookish, into things from the past and depressed.  i imagined conor oberst as i read. lol.  after a lovely evening, in which viv falls in love.  drew winds up missing and she decided to go on a search for him.

  

viv and ray go on a hunt for drew, but the end result was that viv discovered her night with drew was nothing special for the desk girl at the hotel had a similar night as well. 

but life is not sad for too long, because ray invited her and treena to los angeles with him while he promoted his new album in the states. maybe i was smarter than average bear, but i knew that treena and ray were fucking. i knew the second he left viv on the drew hunt.  anyway, i felt bad for viv cos i have been in that awkwardness before.  but it wasn't that bad, because viv had her adventure with the lead singer of ray's rvial band.  i wish there love affair would have lasted, but it had to end.  he had a girlfriend.  also i like uncle many was pissed about tattoos.

so that is a run down of the story, which was enjoyable.  i, of course, loved the bit about hollywood.  i have to add that it made me sad that i never visited the rocky and bullwinkle gift shop that viv mentioned.  i googled the dudley-do right emporium and it closed in 2005 and i was in la during the time.  i used to always take the  bus down sunset to the greyhound so i know i passed it but it didn't strike a cord in me.  i definitely got drunk on sunset too.  i googled and looked at pics, and it looked vaguely familiar, but i could just want the memory.

so as i said, i would have been obsessed with this book, if i was a teen, because i would have loved reading about her fun adventures with bands.  but what made me love this book now was all of the witty writing.  here is some of my favorite:

from their black miss haversham clothes, i guessed the former.  (i love the description of the goth wear!)

my moods are the equivalent to madonna's dancing:  inappropriate but all-out. 

tears sprung in my eyes, like russian ballet stars.

she looked like a quentin blake illustration in a roald dahl book.  (so cute right?)

all in all, a delightful book, which i recommend if you love tavi and lena.  oh and i have to add, it totally made me crave salt and vinegar crisps, which viv ate and so of course after reading, i had to do!