I recently picked up Office Girl by Joe Meno because Publisher’s Weekly said it was “high on quirk and hipster cred” – and well, I’ve always loved hipster lit.
It started in grade 10 when I was assigned to read Catcher in the Rye and I loved it — because I too was a very, very angst-filled teenager with the whole world against me. Of course, I (much) later learned that the world was not against me and I could only blame myself for my own mistakes. By then, I was a sad, broke and unemployed twenty-something living with my parents.
In short, I was earning some hipster cred of my own.
But hipster lit continues to entrance me with its cynical ways, apathetic characters and constant name dropping of bands I don’t know. Hipster lit also does absolutely everything it possibly can to deny that it’s hipster – because it’s simply misunderstood.
New Favourites
Office Girl (Joe Meno), Shoplifting from American Apparel (Tao Lin), All Families are Psychotic (Douglas Coupland)
Old Classics
The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger), The Stranger (Albert Camus), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chboksy)
Photo credit: society6.com
All Families is one of my favourite books. Of all time. Ever.
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