Modern Romance
Ratings218
Average rating3.6
Que la gente ligaba distinto hace 60 años o que ahora usamos mucho los teléfonos móviles, nada que no supiera ya.
Tampoco me ha hecho demasiada gracia su humor.
I bought this because I read an article about dating by the author and it was true and funny. Not so this book. Ansari is not as funny as he thinks he is. And with writing like this: (page 128): “ ...load the cheapest s* I can fill my tank and get the f* out of there”. What truly excellent prose!
I had no idea this had such a strong sociological background. It was a fascinating read, particularly the chapters on dating in other countries. Aziz was a great narrator (I listened to the audiobook).
This was fine. I chose to listen to the audiobook version, and I'm really glad I made that choice, because this really isn't the kind of book I would sit down and read traditionally. In fact, I think the audio format suits the author's style and voice more than the written word. I don't find Ansari hilarious, but I laughed some throughout. The information was eye-opening in parts, especially the sections regarding international dating habits in the modern day. If I'm being honest, I listened to the audiobook in less than two days more to get it off my TBR than because I was really looking for a great read.
I've found myself trying out online dating this year for the first time in my life. It's a bizarre experience in many ways and Ansari's take had me laughing with both recognition and horror.
Listen, Linda, is this guy an authority on dating in the digital age? No, I really don't think so. Is he a good author? No, not really. Is he a good comedian? Perhaps when doing stand-up comedy, but not in the written format. Did I retain anything from this really long and obtuse book? That's debatable. If you want to read stats about online dating, you can google the information. You don't have to read this book.
Listening to Aziz read this book was AMAZING. It was like having Tom Haverford lecturing me during my commute and it reminded me how much I miss Parks and Rec. The research was pretty thorough, he cited a ton of sources that I've read or learned about like Barry Schwartz and Stephanie Koonz.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book, but then again Ansari's humor is kind of my thing so I already knew I'd love it. Fascinating look at the way that technology has changed “romance” overall, and a great discussion on whether it's made it harder/easier to navigate. I'm on a mission to read more non-fiction this year, and this was a great start!
Interesting look on the online dating scene and how people are finding their companions now a days.
(Adding a review so that when I go back to the book I'll know how I felt just after I read it)
The first book of the year and what a start. I listened to it, given my dream is for aziz to read a pasta recipe to me at bedtime. Even though this is a review, think of it more like a free writing. I'm probably going to review just the book and not the review. So coming back to the point, this book, like Aziz I presume, goes down easy. The stats are mind-blowing at some points and he doesn't indulge in them too much and moves forward pretty smoothly. At 6 hours, it's a short listen and thoroughly enjoyable.
We get to see romance from ages past till the modern ones, from the erudite men in Japan to the over promiscuous one in Argentina, the perspectives are vast. I wished he covered one from his parents' country of origin, India for the uninitiated, that would have been interesting seeing that we have the ultra-prude and the uber-creeps in the same country, with a dash of the urban and rural romantics to boot. I'd love to see him take this and many more countries and times on his sequel, the name which has stuck with me since I came up with it on the pot today, Post-Modern Romance. hmmm.
Some points of the book hit too close to home. The boring “hey”s sent to girls, the mind games while texting, the herbivore men. All too real. Though this book might be better if you are a straight male reader, but that's just me projecting. I can't know what others can take away from this, but I'd love to hear the thoughts.
Anyway, As you may now know I'm a big fan of him and his work and love how he divides his life into small projects. Looking forward to what he puts up next.
Less a comedy book, more a research book written in Aziz's signature tone–I could definitely hear everything being said in his voice! This was informative and interesting, especially as an outlier as far as modern romance goes. I loved the addition of graphs and text messages!
Really interesting and not at all what I was expecting (clearly I just saw Aziz Ansari and didn't read the blurb). This was much more in depth and interesting than I'd have expected. I know a couple people who should read this...
this was my first start-to-finish audio book experience (since childhood anyway) and it was pretty awesome! I liked that Aziz read it himself. the content was pretty interesting even if I didn't agree with all the takeaways and Aziz's jokes weren't always funny (sorry?) it was super convenient to bring with me on my commute and at the gym. As with many of the books I'm reading on this topic (#bookclub4m #bookclubformasocists ) this is more about the beginnings of relationships and courtship than later years. very US/hetero centric (which Aziz admits upfront)
Listened to this as an audiobook on the drive from Rochester to Boston. It got some good laughs from me, and while a lot of the modern dating pieces weren't necessarily ground-breaking, Aziz presented them in a refreshing way that makes the whole modern romance scene less absurd to those (ahem, myself) who are subject to it. The sections on romance in other cultures is also pretty fascinating. Would definitely recommend to any millennial, single or not.
Great read about dating in the 21st century. 100% would recommend to anyone interested in learning more about how dating has changed. Obviously focuses on the changes on the past ~5 years, but is well framed by the behavior of the past few generations as well as cultural and behavioral differences around the globe.
Occasionally Ansari's humor got old, but overall it was refreshing.
This book, a survey of current dating practices by young middle class people in several world cities, would be a boring recitation of statistics and anecdotes, without Ansari's humorous quips and observations.
Laugh out loud funny, especially if you're a fan of Master of None or Ansari's stand-up work. I read the book version, but I'm betting that the audiobook is 10x better.
This took me forever to read. Not my cup of tea but it was quite interesting and I did learn a quite a bit about modern romance. Plus, it's Aziz Ansari, so it was great.
I hadn't read anything about this book before I picked it up, so foolishly thought it would be a comedy book, maybe some funny essays or an autobiography about Aziz's love life. Instead, as the introduction laid out for me, Aziz actually teamed up with a sociologist to do legit social science experiments in order to explore modern romance. This immediately made me like Aziz even more, because people were like, you should write a funny book! And he was like, yeah, let's set up some focus groups and gather data!
Not to say this book isn't funny, because it is; it's a sociological look at dating in the modern age filtered through Aziz's voice. So it's funny, and it's enlightening. Everyone knows that dating is different now; the internet exists, women have more choices when it comes to careers and reproduction, economic and social changes mean that young adults are in school longer, living at home longer, etc. This book lays out some of those differences and what they mean for people of dating age nowadays (basically focusing on people 22-30ish, in New York, and in straight relationships). He also looks a bit at what dating looks like internationally, in Paris, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires. It's pretty fascinating. There's a lot of stuff left out, but a scope of “dating culture” in general is much too broad.
I did find interesting the fact that most people, if the person they're dating isn't really into them, would prefer that person be honest and just say sorry, not interested. But those same people, when they're not interested in someone, mostly use the “I'm really busy right now” or just ignoring them methods. So we all want people to be honest, but we are never honest. It's hinted at later that we may not actually want people to be honest. It's really telling that we tend to do the opposite of what we say we'd want in the same situation.
Also, the book itself was pretty slick. I like the cover, the pages were nice and thick, and I liked the simple blue and black text colour scheme.
If you watched Aziz Ansari's recent Netflix show, Master of None, then the content of this book might sound appealing. Unfortunately it is more of a clinical depiction of some of the great comedy from the series. The book itself focuses on the different ways people connect today, and how that's different than it was 50 years ago. What was the most interesting to me was how people connect around the world – in France, Japan and South America.