And the Heart Says Whatever and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more

Buy New

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
Buy Used
Used - Good See details
$3.48 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
Kindle Edition
 
   
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
And the Heart Says Whatever
 
 
Start reading And the Heart Says Whatever on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

And the Heart Says Whatever [Paperback]

Emily Gould (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

List Price: $16.00
Price: $13.98 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $2.02 (13%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Only 9 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).
Want it delivered Tuesday, January 31? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition --  
Paperback, Bargain Price $6.40  
Paperback, May 4, 2010 $13.98  

Book Description

May 4, 2010
Essays by former editor of Gawker.com—and the new female voice of her generation.  In And the Heart Says Whatever, Emily Gould tells the truth about becoming an adult in New York City in the first decade of the twenty-first century, alongside bartenders, bounty hunters, bloggers, bohemians, socialites, and bankers. These are essays about failing at pet parenthood, suspending lust during the long moment in which a dude selects the perfect soundtrack from his iTunes library, and leaving one life behind to begin a new one (but still taking the G train back to visit the old one sometimes).  

For everyone who has ever had a job she wishes she didn't, felt inchoate ambition sour into resentment, ended a relationship, regretted a decision, or told a secret to exactly the wrong person, these stories will be achingly familiar.   At once a road map of what not to do and a document of what's possible, this book heralds the arrival of a writer who decodes the new challenges of our post-private lives, and the age-old intricacies of the human heart.


Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with How Did You Get This Number $9.24

And the Heart Says Whatever + How Did You Get This Number
  • This item: And the Heart Says Whatever

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • How Did You Get This Number

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details



Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On the strength of an exposé she wrote for the New York Times Magazine two years ago about her experience working at Gawker.com, Gould, hailing from Silver Spring, Md., and now in her late 20s, delivers a series of 11 insipid essays about her uninspired youth and general lack of motivation or talent for various jobs she took after moving to New York City. The writing seems intentionally bland, as if Gould is attempting to be blasé. At age 17, as she describes in Flower, she and her suburban friends listened to Liz Phair because the singer gave us permission to do stupid things and consider them adventures; in Gould's case, she deflowered a 14-year-old boy from the swim team, knowing her boyfriend would hear about it. She doesn't get into the artsiest Ivy as per plan (I was neither smart nor exceptional), but attends her safe (unvisited) choice, Kenyon, from which she drops out and moves to New York. Among other gigs, she works as a waitress for a sad-sack music bar and as a receptionist for a large, commercial publishing house (I felt silly for being shocked by the quality of what made it through). At Gawker, she became practiced at scanning a room or a page and isolating the appropriate things to hate. Desultory anecdotes of breakup and dating ensue, leaving the reader more confounded than moved. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Former Gawker editor Gould turns a sharp eye on her own life in 11 essays about her childhood, brief collegiate career in Ohio, and eventual move to New York. The perceptiveness and instinctive talent for spotting and exploiting weakness that elevated Gould at Gawker and made her so controversial carry the book. In the queasy traditions of eviscerating memoirs and plain old gossip, there is an element of callousness even in the tenderest moments she describes with former lovers and friends, making it impossible not to wonder what their reaction to this collection will be. Gould outs her affair at 17 with a 14-year-old, a few awkward years at Kenyon College, various affairs in New York, and a stint as a shot girl at a seedy bar. Gould also discusses her time at Gawker, describing how she covered parties, scanning the room for someone or something to mock. Readers will expect the book, given Gould’s record and reputation, to be salacious but instead it comes off as rather pedestrian. --Katherine Boyle

Product Details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Free Press; Original edition (May 4, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1439123896
  • ISBN-13: 978-1439123898
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #829,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi! Thanks for stopping by; I'm glad you're here. After your visit, check out some of my recent work at the Poetry Foundation, or see what's new on Cooking the Books -- or head over to thingsiatethatilove.tumblr.com for photos of food and cats.

 

Customer Reviews

19 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:
 (6)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:
 (6)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.0 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Yeah. Whatever., May 15, 2010
By 
This review is from: And the Heart Says Whatever (Paperback)
I picked up this book because interviews with Gould have been making the rounds, and she has some really interesting things to say about what's expected from women's confessionals/memoirs, and how their male counterparts are not held to the same standards. She has some thought-provoking views and a unique way of expressing herself.

Sadly, there's little evidence of that in her actual book.

"And the Heart Says Whatever" is moody, aimless, and pretty self-indulgent. There are flashes of insight or humor, but these are so few and far between they feel like they belong to a different, better book. This one has almost nothing to offer besides a fragmented portrait of the author's late-teenage-to-late-twenties ennui.

Here's the thing about memoirs: usually the good ones are written by people who have led fascinating or unique lives. So far, Gould doesn't seem to be one of these people. She moves to NYC after freshman year of college, works a variety of rent-paying jobs, and recovers from the slow dissolution of a six-year relationship. There are sporadic attempts to inject her open-ended anecdotes with gravitas ("We were just college kids," or "I wonder why I didn't crack like an egg on the sidewalk."), but it came off as, well, pretentious. Gould also seems to luxuriate in the idea of herself as a screw-up; not necessarily a Bad Girl but one who realizes the trap of being a Good one. While I applaud the sentiment (and the homage to Liz Phair), her adventures read less like owning her mistakes and more like, you know, stuff. Stuff that happens to everybody, like getting involved with someone when you're not right for each other, or getting a puppy before you're ready for the (huge!) responsibility. None of it's that big a deal.

I suppose much of this could be excused if the prose were anything other than pedestrian. There's nothing particularly atmospheric or captivating about Gould's writing. She lives in one of the most fascinating cities in the world, but all we see of it here is the inside of office buildings and cheap apartments. She writes her "characters" as if for a short story workshop, making them memorable by dint of piled-on metaphors and elaborate physical descriptions, but is seemingly uninterested in them as people with personal motivations. This isn't just true for the bit players, who wander into the narrative to progress the story as needed before wandering off, but for the major influences in Gould's life as well. Her best friend for years disappears in an eyeblink, and her ex-boyfriend, despite permeating Gould's thoughts throughout, is almost a nonentity. We know they were once happy, she says she done him wrong, he's in a band and he has tattoos. Even for 200 pages, that's slim pickings.

"And the Heart Says Whatever" isn't an awful or offensive book. It isn't much of anything, really. Gould spends some time talking about her time at a publishing house and her exposure to "writers" who were bankable for their notoriety rather than talent or something to actually say. I wonder if she's aware that, for all intents and purposes, she's become one of these herself.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars No way, not ever, July 6, 2010
This review is from: And the Heart Says Whatever (Paperback)
The writing in this book was laughably bad. This book wasn't even that long and I felt it dragged on! Calling it self-indulgent is kind. I borrowed this from a friend and couldn't finish it. Don't buy this book unless you have money to burn. If you do have it to burn, give it to charity, not to this author. Boring, pointless, poorly written. Enough said.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars I was as bored as Miss Gould seems to be, July 31, 2010
This review is from: And the Heart Says Whatever (Paperback)
Received a review copy of this book. Sadly the author has very little to say and not much in the way of how to say it. One reviewer's observation that this recounts a mid-twenties ennui just about summed it up. I'm surprised it has such great reviews as it really isn't a great example of the literary essay - check out Joan Didion's 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' to see how it's done.The heart says 'whatever' as it has little else to say, apparently, in this series of essays about nothing....
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews











Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(3)
(3)
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums





Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject