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This is more 3.5

I really like Aziz Ansari and I am fascinated by dating so I was really interested in reading this book. As a person who met my husband using an Internet dating page back in 1999 before this was common, I was really interested in how the dating scene has evolved. Ansari does not disappoint in this regard and serves up lots of data and anecdotes about the modern dating scene around the globe.

What did disappoint was the humor. It felt heavy handed when in print and I can't help but wonder if this might be a better audio book.

Overall it's worth reading if you are interested in technology & dating but I'd lean towards suggesting the library instead of a purchase.

 
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hmonkeyreads | 117 outras críticas | Jan 25, 2024 |
Smartly written; humor gags pretty limited despite main author's main occupation (a good thing); thought-provoking facts; decently organized. I give Ansari props for this work.
 
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mimo | 117 outras críticas | Dec 18, 2023 |
Entertaining and educational! I'm not single or actively dating, but I was inspired to pick this up because some of my friends were having issues in their love lives, so I bought this on a whim. Turns out, I learned a lot about today's dating world, and handy information in the event I find myself on the market again in the future.

There's a lot of truth spoken here, and not all of it is pretty. I've never seen Aziz Ansari's standup performances, but I enjoyed his brand of humor in this book and will definitely check him out now. Well done! I would recommend this to my friends, whether they're single or involved in a relationship.
 
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galian84 | 117 outras críticas | Dec 1, 2023 |
Personally, I really liked this book, because it did a great job summarizing intricacies of dating today. Aziz did a great job researching how dating landscape has changed in Japan, Argentina and other countries. Texting, sexting, tinder and etc. all these topic have been covered in this book. I immensely enjoyed the conclusion of the book - concise, not too heavy, with bit of Aziz' personal humor.
 
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kmaxat | 117 outras críticas | Aug 26, 2023 |
 
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jarrettbrown | 117 outras críticas | Jul 4, 2023 |
I like that Aziz wrote a book like this. It was a fast read that was interesting. The material wasn't dry, either.
 
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bsuff | 117 outras críticas | Apr 6, 2023 |
Well, I think everyone knows by now that upon recommending me a nonfiction book, even if it's comedic, even if it's sociological, my eyes are going to glaze over and I'm going to ask for a summary and outline of main points instead. But I actually really enjoyed this one. Aziz says a lot of the things that I've thought recently about our society today, but there are also some fascinating pieces of research. I particularly love the section of the book that examined dating in Tokyo and in Buenos Aires.
 
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whakaora | 117 outras críticas | Mar 5, 2023 |
When I picked this up, I didn't realize it was going to be anything more than Aziz Ansari being sassy for a few hours. While that would have been just fine with me, it turned out to be an intriguing commentary on how technology has affected modern courtship. Seems like a good deal of research and thought went into this book. And here I thought I was just getting funnies! There are funnies too, though. Never fear. Ansari was a delightful reader, certainly the fastest reader I've ever listened to, and the first one ever to berate me for not reading it myself.
If this is on your to-read list, bump it to the top and do it on audio.
 
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Harks | 117 outras críticas | Dec 17, 2022 |
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. When I heard Tom Haverford penned a book on modern romance, I thought it'd be a silly memoir of dating foibles and mishaps. Not the case. (Well, some. See: Tanya)

But what makes this book different is that Aziz worked with a sociologist, conducted focus groups, polled people, and contacted experts in the field in order to come up with a great book that mixes both the humor and the academic. Only if more academics were able to write like Aziz, I'd find it easier to digest professional literature!

But he makes a lot of great points about dating in the age of Snapchat, Tinder, and the like and their focus groups shed some interesting light on attitudes towards infidelity, monogamish, when to text back, etc. Being of the age group that was most looked up, I found some of the findings to be "well, duh!" but that did not detract my enjoyment of this book.
 
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shatomica | 117 outras críticas | Oct 16, 2022 |
Audiobook is hilarious, material is kinda meh, maybe not my best choice of topic, but Aziz is funny!
 
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ds_db | 117 outras críticas | Apr 25, 2022 |
This book is written by a stand-up comedian in collaboration with a sociologists. The purpose of the book is to understand how singles meet, date, and maintain relationship with potential love interests. They did many focus groups on young professionals in: NYC, L.A., Wichita, a small town in New York state, Tokyo, Paris, and Buenos Aires. They also collected information from an online subreddit group they created. And they did focus groups at a senior citizen center. So they collected many vignettes that illustrate the past and current dating trends and behaviors. They also garnered data from dating sites and existing research. So basically the author presented trends identified in existing research, and illustrated these trends with funny vignettes. In a nutshell, cellphone plays a huge role in modern dating. People meet each other through apps or dating sites, they get to know each other via text messages, and many aspects of romantic relationship are influenced by technology (e.g. sexting behavior, snooping into each other's accounts....)

I find this book funny and easy to read. The author is a bit too enthusiastic about casual sex and infidelity for me to truly root for his success in romantic ventures or agree with some of the conclusions he draw about what is inevitable in romantic relationships. But I learned many new things. I learned about Tinder and how it resembles a fun mini game :P I learned that for Americans (or at least for the author of this book), the term "single life" is used to convey "life with no committed, monogamous relationship, but dotted with endless casual sex." And I learned minute details of Anthony Wiener's sext scandal :P
 
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CathyChou | 117 outras críticas | Mar 11, 2022 |
Smart, more than clever. And obvi funny. Valuable ethnographic research. But it is difficult for me to accept that anything in the observations or analysis is refreshing and epiphanous to many readers. Fun to listen to the audio; lightweight conclusion about how a medium makes a difference. (On the other hand, if it could help fans and readers be a little more conscious of their communication little and grand, it is a 5 star, forgivably repetitive, performance.)
 
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rinila | 117 outras críticas | Feb 25, 2022 |
It goes without saying that in evaluating this book, it is inevitable that one will be influenced by the babe.net article about Aziz Ansari's sexual aggressiveness. But I think even if I read this book before that article came out, I would have found it shallow, painfully unfunny, and definitely much less profound than it pretends it is. I am not sure I buy Nancy Jo Sales' arguments about online dating in her memoir Nothing Personal, but that book was much more real than this one.
 
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jklugman | 117 outras críticas | Dec 23, 2021 |
Surprisingly interesting and informative.
 
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JorgeousJotts | 117 outras críticas | Dec 3, 2021 |
This is hard to rate as it wasn’t what I was expecting at all. It’s more a self help, informational book than humor. Very interesting information and for that I give it 4 stars. But for humor and entertainment, I give it 3.
 
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slittleson | 117 outras críticas | Oct 24, 2021 |
I cannot, in all honesty, recommend this book. There is language and plenty of it. And it bugs me because this is a book. You know they spent a decent amount of time editing everything. The fact that he worked with a professional writer says that he wants this project to be legit. The book is arresting, funny and presents fascinating material WITHOUT the language. It serves very little purpose in my mind. And yes. There was enough that it was impossible to overlook.

But note-- this was not religious non-fiction. I do change it up sometimes.
 
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OutOfTheBestBooks | 117 outras críticas | Sep 24, 2021 |
Very interesting overall, feels like it was a little longer than it should have been. Mostly the same as the TV show that he has out on Netflix, but good for listening while working.
 
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jhavens12 | 117 outras críticas | Sep 1, 2021 |
Very interesting! A fascinating and original sociological study punctuated with Ansari's signature comedic style. I learned so much about my own generation and how our technological advances have changed the way we communicate with each other, romantically and otherwise. In addition to being very informative and funny, I learned a lot about the best way to navigate the world of modern romance.
 
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Chinesa72 | 117 outras críticas | Jul 28, 2021 |
Listened to the author read it (and call me lazy several times for not reading it myself). More effort went into this book than your typical stand-up comedian book. I was hoping for more humor.
 
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brett.sovereign | 117 outras críticas | Jul 10, 2021 |
This book was not what I had expected. Full disclosure, I rarely read book descriptions before I choose a book. I assumed this would be a memoir about Ansari's dating life. I've been watching his Netflix show and think he is a funny guy so i thought this book might be similar. Instead, it was a sociological research study on modern dating with some historical data thrown in for perspective. It was fascinating because i have been doing genealogy research for the past 7 months pretty diligently every night and his research confirmed a few things i had suspected, like people did not go far to find spouses in previous generations. They almost never shopped more than a block away for a life partner. Nowadays though, everything has changed.

That all being said, there were several reasons why this fell 1 star short of 5 stars for me. Ansari did quite a bit of fat shaming. Wtf. Cruel and unnecessary. He also, like in his show, did not take the risk of violence to women very seriously in the dating process. It was briefly mentioned once and it felt more like a lead up to a punchline than anything. And last but not least, this is pure CIS hetero research as Ansari said LGBTQ relationships would need an entirely different book were he to address them. I'm not sure that was actually true for most of the stuff he studied. At the very least, I'm glad he gave an explanation for the focus on hetero couples but it's exhausting to continuously have a HUGE part of the population entirely cut out, especially in a study on "modern love". Sigh.

In conclusion, I laughed out loud enough times to make this book an escape from COVID reality as Ansari is very funny most of the time. I liked it WAY more than I thought I would.
 
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Tosta | 117 outras críticas | Jul 5, 2021 |
nonfiction (modern dating) / humor. [on e-audiobook]

I only got to the end of chapter 3, I think, before my borrowed nook malfunctioned, and some of the tracks that I did get to hear were partially garbled. But I did appreciate Aziz's humor, for the most part, and I did find it interesting--would recommend to any frustrated singles out there, as he's done actual research on the various apps and platforms available (and also provides some insight into the phenomenon of the "break-up" text and the "asking out" text message).
 
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reader1009 | 117 outras críticas | Jul 3, 2021 |
I devoured this book in two sittings--would have in one if it weren't for...ya know...life. Not the most comprehensive or balanced view of looking at romance in the digital age and it's already a wee bit dated, but--as someone who has done about equal parts online dating to real life dating--there was something so incredibly gratifying to actually hear research and testimony about the ups and downs of what romance is like nowadays. While, for personal reasons, I will not be returning to the world of online dating, I have always held that it was no more or less successful than real life dating, and Modern Romance gave my notion a little more depth. This covers a lot more than just that facet of 21st century dating, and now I kind of want to make every person who's poo-pooed this or that about dating in the digital age listen to this.

********
Read Harder? Does this count for my non-fiction about technology?
 
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LibroLindsay | 117 outras críticas | Jun 18, 2021 |
If you watched Aziz Ansari's recent Netflix show, Master of None, then the content of this book might sound appealing. Unfortunately it is more of a clinical depiction of some of the great comedy from the series. The book itself focuses on the different ways people connect today, and how that's different than it was 50 years ago. What was the most interesting to me was how people connect around the world -- in France, Japan and South America.
 
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adamfortuna | 117 outras críticas | May 28, 2021 |
Aziz Ansari's perspective (and his delivery in the audiobook) adds a bit of welcome levity to the topic. I feel lucky to have avoided all of the new stresses and complications of this emerging dating culture.

Aziz describes how an overabundance of romantic options leaves some people feeling they're missing out if they commit to anyone. Not only are these people having a hard time forming long-term relationships, their second-guessing makes those relationships less satisfying.

I've experienced this problem myself when ordering pizza: Should I have ordered from another place? Gotten a different crust? Extra cheese?

Sadly these modern romantics can't settle their feelings about their romantic partners the way I resolve my pizza-related doubts: Asking my wife while her mouth is full of pizza.
 
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wishanem | 117 outras críticas | May 27, 2021 |
This was a more rigorous look than I expected at how dating has changed in the world of smartphone apps and other modern inventions, mostly with the contributions of the sociologist Eric Klinenberg. There's also a fair amount of looks at what innovation that Grindr has brought, which was interesting as I've heard my friends talk about its benefits and drawbacks. Ansari did contribute some timely humor to the title, and I liked that they included some experiences from single people outside of huge cities, because it is a different experience. Ultimately, the tone was a little cutesy for my (non-single, too-academic) tastes but that's understandable given the audience focus and the fact it's now a few years old.½
 
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jonerthon | 117 outras críticas | Apr 11, 2021 |