I Don’t Care about Your Band

What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I’ve Dated

By: Julie Klausner

Narrated by: Julie Klausner

Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

In the tradition of Cynthia Heimel and Chelsea Handler, and with the boisterous iconoclasm of Amy Sedaris, Julie Klausner's candid and funny debut I Don't Care about Your Band sheds light on the humiliations we endure to find love - and the lessons that can be culled from the wreckage.

I Don't Care about Your Band posits that lately the worst guys to date are the ones who seem sensitive. It's the jerks in nice guy clothing, not the players in Ed Hardy, who break the hearts of modern girls who grew up in the shadow of feminism, thinking they could have everything, but end up compromising constantly. The cowards, the kidults, the critics, and the contenders: these are the stars of Klausner's memoir about how hard it is to find a man - good or otherwise - when you're a cynical grown-up exiled in the dregs of Guyville.

Off the popularity of her New York Times "Modern Love" piece about getting the brush-off from an indie rock musician, I Don't Care about Your Band is marbled with the wry strains of Julie Klausner's precocious curmudgeonry and brimming with truths that anyone who's ever been on a date will relate to. Klausner is an expert at landing herself waist-deep in crazy, time and time again, in part because her experience as a comedy writer (Best Week Ever, "TV Funhouse" on SNL) and sketch comedian from NYC's Upright Citizens Brigade fuels her philosophy of how any scene should unfold, which is, "What? That sounds crazy? Okay, I'll do it."

I Don't Care about Your Band charts a distinctly human journey of a strong-willed but vulnerable protagonist who loves men like it's her job, but who's done with guys who know more about love songs than love. Klausner's is a new outlook on dating in a time of pop culture obsession, and she spent her 20s doing personal field research to back up her philosophies. This is the girl's version of High Fidelity.

By turns explicit, funny, and moving, Klausner's debut shows the evolution of a young woman who endured myriad encounters with the wrong guys, to emerge with real- world wisdom on matters of the heart. I Don't Care about Your Band is Julie Klausner's manifesto, and every one of us can relate.

©2010 Julie Klausner (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Julie Klausner is not shy and it's hilarious!

I absolutely loved this book! I think once I got used to Julie Klausner's talk about sex, sex and sex, things got really interesting and I was hooked! I don't remember ever being bored and her narration was filled with the right amount of energy that it felt like she was casually telling you about her life. I would like to say that the story was more about her sex life than I expected without any details left out. If you don't like profanity and swearwords this book may not be so entertaining for you but I loved it.

For the record I have no idea who she is, I just thought the story seemed fascinating and her narrating good. However, sometimes I would remind myself that the people she talk about are real and not fictional characters. She is pretty ruthless about them and at times very rude! But nevertheless I was very entertained and don't regret purchasing it at all.

Funny and relatable

I found a lot of the guys she had in her life resembled the ones that kept showing up in mine. Her depiction of what 20's are like is an exact replica of some of our lives. Moving into the 30's feels remarkably different and towards the end of the book you start to realize this part is natural and all the crap you have gone through is a beautiful piece of the experience. Bravo :)

Funny but…

I do think this book and her stories offer good advice; namely by showing perspective and giving yourself permission to laugh at yourself and the weird dating situations that occur while looking for someone compatible (or trying to force compatibility over the vague outline of a potential partner).

However, some of the language is off putting. It’s like rewatching Friends and realizing how awful everyone is. It’s mortifying to think of how everyone used to talk in the 90s and early 2000s, and hearing it now is jarring and out of place. Those moments in the narration where she’d drop the r word were frequent and it just put me off and took me out of the story she was telling.

A lot of the good reviews on Goodreads say that people are easily offended and too sensitive which I just don’t agree with. I don’t mind people being crass. I don’t mind an unreliable or unlikable narrator. I prefer flawed characters overall, but this is a real person and I don’t see much actual self reflection on her part where it comes to blatant fatphobia and biphobic remarks. Julie Klausner is definitely funny and she crafts the chapters to have a comedic payoff at the end, but after a while the joke got a bit repetitive.

I appreciate that she’s self aware, at least in the later third of the book, but I don’t know if some of the lessons were worth it. Like why did you half heartedly consent to sleep with guys you clearly didn’t like or were disgusted by? It doesn’t really make sense.

I paused for a few months because I wasn’t enjoying and finished today (I started this as a V day read 🙄) mainly just to say I finished it, but the ending really was nice.

i don't know what to say

Any additional comments?

i first downloaded this to get a few laughs. And in the beginning, I wasn't too disappointed.

Then, it changed. I was hoping for wild mishap dating experiences, and instead, I got long rants on how bad the guys were. I couldn't finish it.

I'm too old for this story....

Would you try another book from Julie Klausner and/or Julie Klausner?

Mabye

Would you ever listen to anything by Julie Klausner again?

She reads well. I'm sure she can tell a good story.

Have you listened to any of Julie Klausner’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from I Don’t Care about Your Band?

The vulgar parts.

Any additional comments?

I think it's a generational thing. I don't relate to this particualr context. Maybe the 25 to 35 would relate better. Also, if I wanted to hear the vulgar words to describe the acts of sex, I would have read erotica. I just cringed when out of nowhere I'd get hit by something

not good

not a good good good book. audible is generally good good good good. not not good.

Chauvinistic and Homophobic

What would have made I Don’t Care about Your Band better?

The author begins the book with, "I love men so much that I've never once considered what it would be like to take a break from dating them or to focus my mind on other things besides falling in love with one or to look for work in a field that is more female dominated or anything else lesbians suggest you do after a guy breaks your heart".

The author categorizes any woman who doesn't make dating a priority as a "lesbian" and then speaks about lesbians as if they are evil doers trying to pry women away from men.

What could Julie Klausner have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Nothing.

How could the performance have been better?

If she would have choked during the first few minutes of reading it.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

No.

Any additional comments?

Don't waste your time or money.

Not for the faint of heart

If you are easily offended by swear words and raunchy, explicit sex talk, this book is not for you. Maybe I am a little too old to be reading this (mid-forties). I just thought it would be funnier than it was. Did not find it laugh out loud funny. I found her stories to be more pathetic than anything.

This book is trash

I’m honestly so disappointed that this book is promoted as ‘feminist’ reading. The author spends the better part of the book essentially blaming the various men that she’s dated for not loving her despite her own admission that she tried to force and manipulate them to have feelings for her even when they clearly didn’t. The lack of depth or self awareness in her story is not only evident in the content of the novel, but also in the language. Problematic slurs aren’t cute and they are definitely not feminist. Also, the weird analysis of Miss Piggy and Kermit’s relationship was incredibly uncomfortable to listen to and shows red flags for abuse. I do not recommend this book in the slightest. I didn’t even bother reading the entire thing.