The Breakup Monologues Review

"The Breakup Monologues" is an examination of the impact that breakups have on our society and why they are not completely bad as the author examines her own past relationships for clues into why they ended and how to make her current one last.

General Impressions

I'm someone that doesn't usually read much non-fiction and requested this book simply because I liked the cover and title so I was surprised not only with how much the content resonated with me but with how deeply I enjoyed it (I opened it half an hour after the postman left and didn't close it until a few hours later when I finished it).

The writing itself is clearly influenced by the author's podcast and comedy backgrounds (there is a podcast with the same name) and that really worked for me. The entire book is filled with academic studies, quotes, examples of some public figures' life, friends and podcast guest's testimonies as well as the author's own experiences and thoughts. All of these different medium's were masterfully interspaced in such a way they balanced each other out without making any particular chapter too heavy while still following a narrative arc.

Rosie Wilby presents...

I once read an online post about how (as an LGBTQ+ person) you always knew when something was written by someone in the community when the stereotypes were the right ones. The author not only mentions a lot of those but examines why the lesbian community works in/is a certain way and then is also able to poke fun at herself and her own community without ever discounting the female or lesbian/queer experience.

It's not difficult for me to admit that I ended up loving this book as much as I did solely because it was written by Rosie Wilby: a forty-something woman examining her relationships through the lenses of gender and queerness, which is not the mainstream perspective into relationships let alone breakups. Added to that female gaze, I also liked that Rosie intersected her neuro-divergence and being a self-employed creative with her romantic life.

As a twenty-something reader, it was also extremely emotional for me to read about all the things that she knew would be different in her life if the world had been more accepting of her earlier.

With this being a book about breakups and its tears and joys, there are no idealized 2000's romcoms depictions of what "true love" or "the one" is, focusing instead on perfectly imperfect people that try to make it work. The way that those two (or more) people go at their relationship is different and about much more than simply love or bedroom compatibility but about the day to day of being with the same person for years and still being yourself.

Conclusions

Reading this book was truly a breeze: there was humour, scientific studies, lesbian and LGBTQ+ culture, interviews and all kinds of mentions to famous lesbians that I made a game of trying to recognize. (I did fairly well, I think).

It was obvious that a lot of research, time and love was put into this book and I liked that not only we saw numbers and statistics but at the same time, the author was sieving her own experiences through that data and reaching different conclusions with each chapter. Reading this book felt like a friendly conversation, as I'm sure her podcasts and comedy gigs feel. I'm already looking forward to the next time I come across Rosie Wilby's name.

Thank you to Bloomsbury for sending me this proof

Rating 5/5