No Judgment

January 22, 2024
“There is never no judgement, and certainly not in this book,” writes cultural critic Oyler (Fake Accounts), setting the mission statement for her irreverent collection. In a style reminiscent of David Foster Wallace and Vivian Gornick, Oyler opines on the injustices of the Goodreads ratings system, struggling to tame her anxiety, and her skepticism toward bestseller Brené Brown’s understanding of vulnerability. In “Embarrassment, Panic, Opprobrium, Job Loss, Etc.,” Oyler defends gossip as the “comparing and contrasting and development of interpretation.” Reflecting in “Why Do You Live Here” on the quirks of her life as an American expat in Berlin, Oyler describes moving to the city “for no good reason” after college and wrestling with how she and other expats are changing what counts as “authentic” Berlin. Elsewhere, Oyler pushes back against claims that autofiction is indulgent, arguing that anything can be worth writing about—“it just has to be interesting.” Oyler’s commentary is incisive, and her prose is lucid and playful. “I heard a crazy story recently,” she concludes the piece on gossip. “I wouldn’t sacrifice the knowledge for even the highest moral high ground in the world—but I would also never, in a million years, tell you.” This is as intellectually stimulating as it is fun to read. Agent: Alia Habib, Gernert Co.

Starred review from February 1, 2024
Deep thoughts on contemporary life from the author of the novel Fake Accounts. Oyler's debut novel was heavy on social commentary, interrogating such phenomena as Instagram and dating apps and the pressure to turn the self into a marketable product. In her second book, she explores similar themes. In "Embarrassment, Panic, Opprobrium, Job Loss, Etc.," the author reflects on gossip as cultural currency by analyzing examples from her own life, the rise and fall of Gawker, and the #MeToo movement, among other subjects. This essay is not a puff piece; it's more than 40 pages long, and it's clearly the product of significant research and careful thought. It's also absorbing and funny. While reflecting on her mother's habit of sharing scandalous tidbits about Oyler's friends when she was a child, the author suggests that her mom was trying to both connect with her daughter and provide cautionary tales. "She was also, of course, parenting unconsciously," she writes, "setting me up to become, among other things, a woman who is interested (and proficient) enough in gossip that she wants to write a long essay about it." A resonant piece titled "My Perfect Opinions" begins as a tale of Goodreads and revenge and turns into a wry history of the star rating system. "The story begins in 1792, when pretty much everyone in the English writer Mariana Starke's family had tuberculosis," she writes. The title, as Oyler explains in the introduction, is ironic. This is a writer with particular views, and she has plenty of interesting things to say about autofiction, spoilers, and life as an expatriate. Some readers have seen Oyler's work in Harper's, the London Review of Books, and the Believer, but all of the essays in this collection are published here for the first time. A challenging and often eye-opening nonfiction debut.

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Starred review from February 15, 2024
The title is ironic. "There is never no judgement, and certainly not in this book," states cutting-edge cultural critic and novelist Oyler (Fake Accounts, 2021), who takes on such thorny topics as revenge, gossip, vulnerability, fake news, and autofiction in this collection of new and substantial essays. These peppery inquiries are rigorously informed, deftly composed, and deeply conceptualized interpretations of human foibles and endeavors in a world feverish with social media and hooked to the "attention economy." Her look into the rise and fall of Gawker casts light on numerous journalistic and personal conundrums. A dive into Goodreads and its star rating system includes a foray back to the game-changing, late-eighteenth-century travel guides created by English writer Mariana Starke, who used exclamation points to rank tourist sites. Whatever Oyler's focus, from trends to works of literature and art, it is the perversity of human nature that most intrigues her, and she does not spare herself. A self-described "snob, highbrow, elitist," she is scorching on all counts as she writes about why she and others live as expats in Berlin. And lest anyone think this comes easily to her, she reveals the intensity of her chronic anxiety. Oyler is frank, fierce, funny, and brilliant; her brainy, passionate criticism exhilarating.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.