Not That Kind of Girl
A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"
by Lena Dunham
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More Recommenders
“So happy this Christmas night, finishing @lenadunham's book. Love it all, but this line brought me fits of laughter:”
Source →Recommended by 3 notable people, including Meghan Markle and Audrey Gelman
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Reading Profile
Should I read this?
Not That Kind of Girl is a collection of frank, often funny personal essays delivered in a breathy, conversational voice: short scenes, blunt sexual anecdotes, and chatty cultural asides. Its useful part is liveliness of voice and the way small humiliations are made vivid and oddly relatable. Its limitation is repetition and occasional self-regard, which can make later chapters feel like extended riffs rather than tightened pieces with new insight. Best consumed in short sittings; not a source of practical takeaways or structured guidance.
Read this if...
- •an aspiring essayist in their early twenties assembling a portfolio for workshops or magazine submissions — useful now as a contemporary template for a candid, conversational voice and for learning how to turn small humiliations into sharpened, scene-based anecdotes while you're drafting.
- •a first-time memoir writer sitting on a raw first draft and deciding how to render intimate moments on the page — helpful now for concrete examples of scene-building, frank detail, and choices about how much private material to keep or pare back.
- •a 30-something re-evaluating dating and friendships after a breakup, move, or career shift — fits now if you want a generational snapshot and a permission-giving, often funny companion voice rather than practical advice.
Skip this if...
- •you'll likely put it down when the confessional tone repeats and anecdotes start to feel self-focused; the midsection can drag as similar scenes get restated
- •annoying if you prefer airtight argument or practical guidance — no exercises, no structured takeaways, mainly personal storytelling
- •annoying if you dislike brash sexual frankness or celebrity-adjacent memoir voice; the book leans into raw, unfiltered moments and can come off as self-involved
"There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told," writes Lena Dunham, and it certainly takes guts to share the stories that make up her first book, Not That Kind of Girl. These are stories about getting your butt touched by your boss, about friendship and dieting (kind of) and having two exi...
Before You Buy
Reading Specifications
Difficulty:easy
Audience Fit
- an aspiring essayist in their early twenties assembling a portfolio for workshops or magazine submissions — useful now as a contemporary template for a candid, conversational voice and for learning how to turn small humiliations into sharpened, scene-based anecdotes while you're drafting.
- a first-time memoir writer sitting on a raw first draft and deciding how to render intimate moments on the page — helpful now for concrete examples of scene-building, frank detail, and choices about how much private material to keep or pare back.
- a 30-something re-evaluating dating and friendships after a breakup, move, or career shift — fits now if you want a generational snapshot and a permission-giving, often funny companion voice rather than practical advice.
- you'll likely put it down when the confessional tone repeats and anecdotes start to feel self-focused; the midsection can drag as similar scenes get restated
- annoying if you prefer airtight argument or practical guidance — no exercises, no structured takeaways, mainly personal storytelling
- annoying if you dislike brash sexual frankness or celebrity-adjacent memoir voice; the book leans into raw, unfiltered moments and can come off as self-involved
Check formats, pricing, and availability options for Kindle, physical print, or audiobooks directly.
View available editions on AmazonKey themes
Why recommended
Recommended by 4 sources and appears in Most Recommended Books, Fiction, and Nonfiction.
Recommended by notable people
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
Recommendation Signals
Recommendation proof is sourced from public posts, interviews, reading lists, and cited references.
Audrey Gelman
“So happy this Christmas night, finishing @lenadunham's book. Love it all, but this line brought me fits of laughter:”
Appears In
Not sure if this is the right fit?
Consider Accidental Presidents by Jared Cohen. Recommended by 10 sources.
“Accidental Presidents offers eight narrative portraits of men who succeeded to the U.S. presidency without election, using anecdote-rich scenes and readable context to show how personality and circumstance interact with office power. It’s strongest as a set of self-contained stories that make succession stakes concrete for non-specialist readers; it does not prioritize dense archival argument or exhaustive methodology, so expect some interpretive generalizations and repeated themes across cases. Use it for fast historical orientation rather than scholarly deep-dives.”
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How recommendation signals are reviewed
Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.