Customer Reviews

Not That Kind of Girl: A Memoir

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love memoirs, especially ones about addiction, my motto being, "the more debauched the better." But Carlene Bauer has written quite a different sort of memoir. Her story is of a good girl who is both equally baffled by and attracted to the misbehaviors of her peers. Not one to go unreflectively forth, Bauer ponders her way through to her 30's. Luckily for us, all of her introspection is written in precise and evocative prose, laced with humor, wit, self-deprecation and honest admissions of pain and humiliation. If you have a functioning brain, if you think about your place in the world, if you've ever felt awkward, disappointed by reality, or wanted more than what made the rest of the people around you happy-you will love this book.

A story about weighing pleasure against goodness, god against sex and boys, modest middle-class values against vaulting ambition, etc. To all the thoughtful girls and once-girls out there, I recommend it wholeheartedly

I picked this book up after reading a review/excerpt on [...]. As an avid reader of memoirs, I was excited to find one that tackled the subject of spirituality from a Christian experience. Ms. Bauer's writing is engaging, and I had no problem going along for the ride. I enjoyed her lyrical turns of phrase and creative metaphors but found, like a prior reviewer, that some of her references were obscure (or perhaps, over my history major head). I also found myself stumbling every now and then on over-worked phrasing that took me out of the rhythm of reading.

The work itself is honest, open, detailed and entertaining. . . for the first 75% of the book. It seemed like so much care and detail was given to the first part of the book that I was disappointed at the rushed turn things took once she decided to convert to Catholicism. It seemed from that point on, things were combined, edited down, rushed and passed over. Additionally, it's hard to feel satisfied with the trajectory of the story when something as crucial as the author losing her faith is given all of a few paragraphs of development (it was unclear, was it 9/11 solely? The book seemed to imply that after 9/11 she just stopped going to church and walked away from God, but it was so under-explored for something so huge.). Likewise, her two real adult relationships feel tacked on at the end. I can't decide if the odd way those relationships are handled (referring to her boyfriend as "her friend", no name, no pseudonym) is due to real life legal issues (no releases) or rush to publication? Regardless, the overall effect feels unbalanced when the themes threaded throughout the book are her relationship with God and how it grows and changes as she does, and her decision to remain a virgin as a facet of that relationship, that when the loss of both of those is treated with such brevity and without refection, it felt like a letdown.

If not for the rushed last 25% of the book and the flat ending, I would have happily given this 4-5 stars.

I haven't read many memoirs where I felt compelled to underline sentences because they resonated so strongly with my own view of the world. NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL almost could be my story --- a prudish and bookish girl growing up in the '80s and '90s with a passion for evangelical Christianity and an equally passionate love of words. Just like the author Carlene Bauer, "I was sure that when people talked about using our gifts to glorify [God], it meant that God was going to put me to work writing devotional guides for teenage girls." And just like Bauer, I wasn't sure that this was the life I wanted.

Bauer did have one thing that I didn't --- a life plan involving majoring in English right out of high school and moving to New York to work as a writer. While I did eventually get my English degree and have now visited New York, this memoir allows me to live vicariously through Bauer and see a life that at the ripe "old" age of 32 I feel I cannot pursue now. And not only can I see this life, I can see it through the eyes of a young girl equally afraid of her own sexuality, equally stuck in the lives of dead authors' romantic heroines, equally replacing underlining in Bibles with underlining in novels that refreshingly offer no one truth, and, ultimately, equally stumbling through life without all the answers.

There were moments when Bauer and I took the exact same steps --- the same Christian hang-ups bothered us in the same order, starting with the phrase "How's your walk with the Lord?" and ending with a desperate scramble to find some denomination that let women be feminists and congregants be liberal but ultimately failing in this quest. What Bauer also refreshingly shares with me is a real acceptance of those who have stayed with Christianity, and a hint of envy that they can lead their lives with such blind faith while we are left with the "curse" of unbelief.

But Bauer is also not me. Her memoir is filled with literary name dropping that I shamefully admit is not really name dropping but simply a more intense knowledge of the subject she studied. Reading her memoir is like taking a refresher course in English literature --- some of the references you get, and some you don't. But you end the book feeling smarter (or more stupid for not being as smart) than when you first opened it. However, Bauer's aim is not to make her readers feel smart, or stupid. It's to make them feel human and to tell them that this humanness is okay --- for Bauer herself is also refreshingly self-critical.

At times during the memoir I was afraid for the author. She would take a turn and I would think, "Oh no, here is where we will differ." But as I continued reading, she always came back to me and embraced my decisions as her own. The exception to this, at least so far in my single life, is to whom she decides to commit. Without ruining an ending, I'll say that it follows in the same vein of the current romantic comedy trend --- overly educated women who have to learn to "let go" and settle for less educated men, and to do so with a feeling of shedding shameful intellectualism and embracing a life of simpler pleasures. But I do not blame Bauer for this. It is simply an outcome of societal role reversals --- women proving to the world that they can get an education, and men proving to the world that an education isn't all it's cracked up to be. And secretly, I can't help but desire my own nonintellectual, carefree companion. If Bauer's and my joint fate thus far is any indication, this man should be showing up in about a year.

--- Reviewed by Shannon Luders-Manuel

Bauer's memoir is old-fashioned in the best possible ways: The sentences are carefully considered (often stunning), and unlike so many memoirs these days, the simple and salacious are overlooked in favor of a complicated contemplation that is truer to everyday life. Bauer wasn't raised by crack-addicted circus clowns, she didn't wake up on airplanes in pools of her own blood -- her upbringing was similar in its details to many people who grew up in the '70s and '80s. What's uncommon is not the details of her life, but what she crafts from them. Turning the ordinary into art is not easy, but Bauer has done it. Yes, there is some Tina Fey/Liz Lemon in here, as some reviewers elsewhere have mentioned, but there's also some Mary McCarthy and some Augustine. It's a heady, charming brew. The book doesn't wrap things up in a bow, but by the end there is a lovely sense of moving ahead in life despite uncertainty and contradiction; of staying attentive to the world and its questions, whether or not you think there's a single Answer waiting to be found.

In, "Not that kind of Girl," Carlene Bauer hilariously yet philosophically explores eventual disenchantment with her religious and literary upbringing, in favor of maturing and becoming a real New Yorker. Bauer's memoir is easy to relate to, as Bauer recounts her Church upbringing in south New Jersey, her school transitions leading to a small Catholic college in Baltimore, and her on-going ambition to make it as a writer in the big city. Yet, Bauer soon learns that reality never quite matches the plots of her beloved books, and religious devotion can sometimes weaken her resolve. Innocent and naïve, her memoir re-awakens the teenager in all of us--wanting nothing more than to belong, find that other perfect partner, and survive adversity by drinking it away, going to parties, and feigning contentment. Bauer's real life only begins when she moves to New York City at the ripe old age of 23. Only there, does she learn to drink, party, and fleet from man to man in relationships harboring on the sexual yet curiously--for the most part--remaining platonic. Any new experience is treated as an "experiment," as Bauer appears to be an onlooker but never a participant of her own life. Soon enough, she finds herself unsatisfied with her office job and filled with increasing loneliness as her love life proves virtually non-existent, even as her best friend moves out to live with her boyfriend and female friends discuss their husbands. And yet, in true Hollywood fashion, Bauer's memoir retains the happy ending we all hope for. Her love life and career prospects improve, even as Bauer discusses losing her faith and insecurity about what it is she wants in life. Ultimately, Bauer's journey is both spiritual and revealing, showing not only her life but the workings of a modern society, no longer so puritanical in the age of sexual freedom, decadence, and capitalism.

There is no doubt about it--Carlene Bauer can write. I found her book more interesting as she was wrapping up her story because there was a bit more action and less talk. The attraction she feels to two men and the enigma she faces in her spiritual life both make the final chapters compelling.

Up to that point I sometimes found myself drowning in a sea of words. She can be so obtuse that several chapters went by before I realized that she was still a virgin, that all those nocturnal encounters with a string of young men stopped short of consummation.

Bauer wants a man who is both sexually exciting and intellectually fascinating. She wants a religion that she can believe in totally with no exceptions. Born into fundamentalism, she soon discovers its restrictions don't make for a comfortable fit, but Catholicism doesn't mesh with her beliefs either. Her childhood love of God and Jesus doesn't translate once she reaches adulthood and faces life as a single woman in New York City. 9-11, as it does for many others, has a startling effect on her spirituality.

She seems to be fulfilled in the other areas of her life. She enjoys her writing career in a high-rise building where the camaraderie between her and her colleagues is satisfying. Still, by the final page, when she must walk by the Pentecostal meeting with the joyful faces, we're aware that there's something missing but she can't compromise herself. She doesn't find the perfect religion or the perfect man by the final chapter.

I thought of Ernest Hemingway and The Lost Generation. I thought of Ernest, the protagonist in The Way of All Flesh who casts aside his religious life and academic life for what he sees as life on his own terms. His writing also is the highlight of his existence. It's a sad story but all too common now in our modern times. People are seeking for more than their parents had, not necessarily in a material sense, but a deeper emotional life. But to use an old expression, "Sometimes it's like throwing out the baby with the bathwater." They're left with a void.

and then I lost interest. Clearly, Bauer is a very intelligent woman (and if you forget this, she reminds you), but I became tired of her waxing philosophical about her virginity and God issues. Usually, I'm a sucker for coming-of-age memoirs, especially when they're mixed with religion, but this lacked a certain something (humor, perhaps?) and just seemed to meander along midway through. Bauer may take herself a tad too seriously, and frankly, I found her a little too annoying to care about what ultimately happened to her virginity or relationship with God. I put it down and immediately became engrossed in a much less intellectual, but far more engaging memoir, "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch."

I have to say that I basically devoured Not that Kind of Girl in two days! That is how good and engaging this memoir is.

Carlene Bauer writes about a subject matter that is timely as well as timeless. Regardless of the generation, many girls have grown up with mixed messages - that is 'that there is such a thing as a "good girl" and a "bad girl" and you always want to be the good gril - except, of course, that nobody really explains to you how to deal with things like hormones, love, lust, fear and peer pressure come in. You instantly find yourself in a world where things are no longer so black and white.

This is the basic premise of the memoir and I have to say that Bauer explores this theme with some humor, a healthy dose of self exploration, a degree of fear and alot of hope.

You can almost tell, in some parts of the books, where the author could simply have written "and I took a deep breath and just went for it - hoping it was the right decision" and this made the book incredibly realistic to me.

Bauer has a beautiful way with words and she managed to convey an enormous amount of feeling into each page.

I found myself nodding at so many of th passages, all the way cheering her on and encouraging her to find her own way - minus all the head stuff. I think I was partially doing it for her - and partially for me.

Lovely, lovely memoir.

It took me a while to really get snagged with this book. There are parts that clip along and parts that lag. As someone who came from the fundamentalist tradition and left, there was a lot in the book that really resonated with me and there are some really profound observations on life, love, art, and religion throughout.