I’m finding it difficult to blog about quirkyalone. It was a weird book. I don’t have any problems with the quirkyalone label. I understand it. I might actually be a quirkyalone together person. In fact I probably am. I also think Michelle is quirkyalone. Jenn and Chris, totally not quirkyalone. But that is neither here, nor there. I’m talking about the book.
I ended up with the book because librarian Katie was talking about it on a message board. Which reminded me that sassymonkey did not like it, (though I think she doth protest too much – she is quirkyalone and I will explain to her later how one can be a quirkyalone together). I figured it was time to check it out and see it for myself. I had to get it through Inter-Library Loan because obviously the Alachua County Library system would not have it. There is nothing quirkyalone about this county. Fake quirky maybe but definitely not real quirky much less quirkyalone. Too many people wearing matching shirts all the time.
I liked bits and pieces of the book but I was mostly just disappointed. I don’t like my books to look like ‘zines, even if the author is a ‘zine writer. I like social network profiles but I don’t want my books to look like someone went to some social networking site (which by the way there should be a quirkyalone social networking site and I should be hired to run its community) and pulled various profiles and just plopped them into the book as content. Profiles aren’t content. They’re good lead ins to content. They’re a good way to tie up content. They’re good filler between content. But full pages of profiles – not content. Boring as all hell.
So where the book wasn’t formatted like a ‘zine, I liked it. I liked the resources in the back, those were nice but nice enough for me to want to buy or even read the book in order to get to them. I can just get those online, ya know? And where it wasn’t just straight profile, I liked it. Which means I didn’t much like the book, it was full of stuff I just didn’t like. I do, however, like quirkyalones.
Technorati Tags: quirkyalone, nonfiction
I read this at least 18 months ago so you are making me think. I will admit how you can be a quirkyalone and a quirkytogether. But the way they way they came up with it irked me. The whole book irked me.
I didn’t like it because I got the feeling that they came up with the idea because they wanted to “belong”. Instead of just saying “I am me and that’s terrific” they had to stick themselves with a label. It just seemed too contrived to me, almost propaganda-ish.
I’m just me. I don’t need or want a label.