Late last week, we got an email from the publicist for Ten Thousand Stories. Apparently, the super-hip design blog UnBeige decided to review our book. And oh my goodness, what a review it is. Not only did the reviewer like the book (which gratifies us, of course), but she really GOT the book, including all the small stuff we did to make it our own.
Let us count the ways in which we were pleased by the review:
1) She compared Robbi to Quentin Blake. (Now Robbi will be insufferable all day.)
2) She referred to us as “pretty twisted.” We’re assuming that means she thinks we’re pretty? And twisted. But mostly pretty, right?
3) She “got” that the point of the Robbi-redacted intro letter was to make the reader “confused, a little uncomfortable, and yet completely taken.” That’s EXACTLY what we were going for. I could not have said it better myself.
4) She noted that “the illustrations match the narrative flawlessly.” (Now Robbi is not just insufferable, but contacting talent agents to see about jumpstarting a Hollywood career. I tried to explain that drawing prowess is not necessarily qualification for starlet status, but Robbi just told me to read the fine print of her contract and to bring her peeled grapes stat. I wish I could say this were different from any other day with Robbi.)
5) And gosh, can this reviewer write. She is eloquent and insightful. Evidence: the final paragraph, my favorite part of the review:
Relating to Matthew and Robbi feels natural, and the nonchalant, often self-deprecating style disarms the reader from the start. The book doesn’t tell you how to feel, it’s literally telling you to decide for yourself. Matthew and Robbi are your incredibly supportive best friends—the same ones who send you an inappropriate Christmas card every December.
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a better assessment of what Robbi and I do, not necessarily in our books, but in our lives. This is what we hope to bring to the world: a mixture of comfort and humor and play and irreverence. This is our real art. But we’ve never met Mariam Aldhahi, who wrote this review. That she was able to get all that from just reading this book is the ultimate compliment—not just to us, but to Chronicle and to our amazing editor Bridget Watson Payne.
I’m glowing right now with that rare satisfaction of feeling understood at the deepest levels.
Robbi – be sure to get in your contract bottled (in glass) waters (both flat and fizzy) for your dressing room AND bath.
Good thought, Jenifer. And since we have a sodastream already, I’ll just make Matthew seltzify the bath water for me!
In all of Matthew’s glowing reviews of this glowing review, he neglected to mention the one thing that Ms. Aldahi got wrong – though we would LIKE to be those people who send you an inappropriate Christmas card every December, we never remember it’s actually December until December is mostly over. But she definitely recognizes the people we someday hope to be, that beautiful day when we can keep our months straight before they are already past us.
This reviewer is obviously new to the game. I thought you were supposed to read just the first 1/7 of the book (not that determining what exactly that IS is an easy task in your case) & base all commentary upon that alone.
Also, just to fulfill MY contractual obligation to lower the standard of intellectual dialogue here, Robbi, you’ll want to specify EXACTLY the manner in which Matthew seltifies your bath.