Jason Diamond (1)

I truly don't know what I expected going into this book. I'm one of those readers that sees a book, reads a bit of the back copy, decides on the spot if it's a yes or no read, then it gets shelved for a few months at the end of the TBR pile.

Which often means, by the time I've come around to read it, I've forgotten the initial spark that grabbed me. Though, as a lover of Hughes' earlier movies, I'd say that was it.

What I didn't expect was to read about whiny, phony asshole, but that's what I got. Did the author get dealt a bit of a shit hand with his father? Definitely. Guy's a dick. But Diamond also seems to paint his mother in an unsympathetic light--a mother that saved him from an abusive father, obviously sought out what help she could, and finally abandoned her only son when he'd retreated into drugs, robbery, and staying away from home for days on end.

The author talks of another family that brought him into the fold, and then he was the excuse for an unwanted pregnancy, leaving and never thanking them for their kindness, leaving the father to write a heartbroken apology to him that he received years after the man's death.

He talks of a kindly teacher "that probably saved my life" that he lived with for a time, then essentially abandoned to go to New York, always meaning to look her up, or visit. But of course, she died unthanked.

He talks of spending money he doesn't have on food he doesn't like to impress people he doesn't want to be around. He avoids people who have made an effort to reacquaint with him, skipping their weddings, while throwing his lot in with people he knows are assholes.

And through it all, he tries to get into the head of John Hughes, a man he's never met, and doesn't know. A project he decided to take on after he was backed into a corner and had to drunkenly bluff his way out. Oh, and he wants to title it from the lyric to Don't You Forget About Me instead of, you know, pulling any of the eminently quotable lines that Hughes himself wrote.

The hubris of this asshole is astounding.

And through it all, I could only keep asking myself, did he learn nothing from all those viewings of Hughes' movies? Isn't the core message of Ferris Bueller to spend the time with the ones you love, because life moves pretty fast? Isn't the message of Pretty in Pink, and Some Kind of Wonderful, and Sixteen Candles, and The Breakfast Club...most of Hughes' movies, for that matter, to be honest with each other? To embrace the differences? To respect the weird and the unloved?

This guy basically tells the story of bumbling around for years, writing a book he was unqualified to write, then stumbling into a good relationship, and then, because of that, a good job.

Yeah, don't care, Diamond.… (mais)

I listened to this on audio. Jason grew up in the 80's from a broken home in Chicago and connects with the characters and settings of classic John Hughes movies (Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, etc). A situation I can relate too (NOT the broken home, but the love of the Hughes-a-verse).

He decides that its his goal to meet his idol and write his biography, despite the fact that he doesn't know how to write a biography and has no prospects of meeting Hughes or any of the actors in the films. This book, instead, becomes Diamond's memoirs of the attempt. It is strangely compelling and a good read (or listen, as it was in my case)

7/10

S: 2/27/17 - 3/12/18 (14 Days)… (mais)