Lauren, if you’re reading this, don’t 🫶🏻

“No Judgement” is a collections of essays that is, in fact, filled with judgement. I was completely unaware of Lauren’s background before picking this up (thanks @librofm ) on audio. She’s a literary critic and author of “Fake Accounts,” which I saw floating around when it released. 

I think this might be the most pompous and pretentious collection I’ve ever read and part of me really feels like that was Lauren’s intention. She strikes me as too smart to be unaware that her overall tone and style of writing is, at times, a bit insufferable! 

Some of the essays seemed tedious to me (her essay an auto fiction) while others were really relatable (her essay on goodreads and keyboard warriors on the internet, cancel culture, etc.) and then there was one where I felt so seen I was like hey girl? are we the same? Re her essay on her almost debilitating anxiety and TMJ. 

After reading some reviews about this online I can tell that Lauren is pretty polarizing and I felt the same. Some essays I really enjoyed and others I was like girl simply what the fuck are you talking about. I also fear that I might be ~simply too stupid~ for some of this content. And that’s okay because I don’t want to spend my time parsing through whether or not auto fiction is less valid than a memoir because I ✨don’t care ✨

I will say, as a publicist, I do agree with Lauren’s criticism of perception of writers. I think that in order to publicize books authors have to dole out pieces of personal information and sell them to the public. Oh your main character has debilitating depression, the author must as well, now it’s an interview topic. I agree with her overall assertion that criticism is a behavior that’s yielding to the droves of “chronically online” folks that lack nuance who are driving the cancel culture movement. I think there’s a difference between holding people accountable and the “cancel culture” internet.