Story of My Life Book

So, like, first off, a confession: I don't read a lot of stuff.

Like maybe magazines at the doctor's office or while working out on the elliptical, or Facebook and Twitter posts and of course Instagram (I love using their awesome filters!) and Snapchat. But books? Sigh. Life is too short, ya know? I want to LIVE life, not READ about it.

But somehow this book grabbed my attention. It's about Alison Poole, a 20-year-old woman living a fabulous existence in late 1980s Manhattan. This is long before Sex And The City and Girls. And it's also LONG BEFORE EVERYONE OWNED A SMART PHONE! I mean, seriously, this was practically like a time capsule. The number of times people had to leave messages on answering machines was hilarious! I kept thinking: JUST TEXT THEM!!!

Anyhow, Alison. She grew up in the South, has a rich, absent dad who's obsessed with dating women who are about her own age (creepy huh?) and now she parties a lot. She's also studying to be an actress - a serious theatre actress - when she's not too hungover to attend her classes.

The book begins when Alison realizes her dad is late with her tuition money so - bummer - she can't attend school. The way she gets out of it - which I won't spoil here - shows you how clever she can be. Clever but also, maybe, a teensy bit manipulative and, as my literature prof used to say, "morally questionable."

Not much happens. Alison hangs out with her rich bitch friends who have a variety of issues: one has an eating disorder, another is engaged to a guy who might not BE THE ONE, another has a way serious drug habit. They have problems paying rent, even though they all like to shop and take limos.

Then Alison meets a guy, some bond trader who is slightly older and wants to be a writer and knows everything about Shakespeare. She likes him - she keeps telling us she's "falling in lust with him," which made me laugh. But there are complications. She runs into her asshat ex and lots of other guys who have either been in her pants or want to be. When she can't get ahold of the bond guy she thinks he's cheating on her. She has a moral code: just be honest. And she can't, ya know, lurk on social media to see what he's up to.

I immediately connected to Alison and quickly realized that even though she speaks in a certain way - sort of like me, actually - and although people make assumptions about her because of her looks (I think she's about a 9 or a 10), she's pretty damn intelligent.

She's also very funny, a real BS detector, like that guy from that book… you know the one… the one we all had to read in high school about the guy who drops out of prep school and hates phony people? Yeah, that one.

And she reminds me a bit of that character that Audrey Hepburn played in that awesome movie called Breakfast At Tiffany's: jaded and gorgeous and world-weary, but also kinda vulnerable. (Someone told me that was also based on a book, but as I already told you, I don't read much!)

When I went on Wikipedia, I found out Alison Poole (if I were in high school I'm sure we'd have to look for some symbolism about her name - ya know, hidden depths and stuff?) was based on a real person named Rielle Hunter, who had an affair with some guy running for president and had a baby by him. Cool, huh?

According to a friend who reads a lot of books and recommended this one to me, the author also wrote something called Bright Lights, Big City, which also dealt with sex and drugs and made him a star of the "Literary Brat Pack" group, whatever that is. And apparently Alison was such a memorable character that she shows up in a couple of books by Bret Easton Ellis, another of those "Brat Pack" authors.

My friend told me the author of Story Of My Life matured a lot and went on to write things like The Good Life and Bright, Precious Days and also some books about wine.

He says the author is "terribly underrated, and is one of the best stylists working today."

I don't know about that. And frankly, I think my friend is a bit of a snob. But I enjoyed this book. It showed me that things aren't always as they appear on the surface. Even pretty, rich people have lots of problems.

Gee. Maybe I'll even read another book soon. Miracles never cease, huh?