Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs by Dave Holmes

Release date: June 28, 2016
My rating: ★★★★☆

I'm not a big fan of memoirs and biographies. It's not that I dislike the person it talks about, but rather the way the facts and bits of information are displayed. This person was born this day, did this stuff, then died. Not my thing.

This book, though, changed a bit my perspective of this genre. It showed me that getting to know someone's life can be fun. The anecdotes in here, for example, were just plainly hilarious, and so was the author's way of telling them.

A thing that I particularly enjoyed, and that I haven't seen in any other book, is how Holmes links certain songs to each stage of his life. I listened to some of them while reading this, and they really set the vibe and the tone of how he felt at that time, and what he was going through.

I started reading this novel as open-minded as I could, but I guess that wasn't really necessary, since it would've won me anyway. It is fast-paced, and as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.

Goodreads description

From former MTV VJ Dave Holmes, the hilarious memoir of a perpetual outsider fumbling towards self-acceptance, with the music of the 80's, 90's, and today as his soundtrack

Dave Holmes has spent his life on the periphery, nose pressed hopefully against the glass, wanting just one thing: to get inside. Growing up, he was the artsy son in the sporty family. At his all-boys high school and Catholic college, he was the closeted gay kid surrounded by crush-worthy straight guys. And in his twenties, in the middle of a disastrous career in advertising, he accidentally became an MTV VJ overnight when he finished second, naturally, in the Wanna Be a VJ contest, opening the door to fame, fortune, and celebrity–you know, almost.

In Party of One, Holmes tells the hilariously painful and painfully hilarious tales–in the vein of Rob Sheffield, Andy Cohen, and Paul Feig–of an outsider desperate to get in, of a misfit constantly changing shape, of a music geek who finally learns to accept himself. Structured around a mix of hits and deep cuts from the last four decades–from Bruce Springsteen's "Hungry Heart" and En Vogue's "Free Your Mind" to LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge" and Bleacher's "I Wanna Get Better"–and punctuated with interludes like "So You've Had Your Heart Broken in the 1990's: A Playlist" and "Notes on (Jesse) Camp," this book is for anyone who's ever felt like a square peg, especially those who have found their place in the world around a band, an album, or a song, It's a laugh-out-loud funny, deeply nostalgic story about never fitting in, never giving up, and letting good music guide the way.