I never like to judge a book on anything other than its own merit, but that becomes difficult when the writer has such a visible public persona. While Cazzie David isn’t necessarily a celebrity in her own right, she has a kind of adjacent fame, due to her father’s success and her relationship with Pete Davidson. David is also fairly young, which doesn’t mean her work is juvenile by default, but does give me pause. The point has been made that without her father’s fame, David would not have this book out, and I tend to agree. While No One Asked for This shows definite potential and some of the essays are worth reading, the book is sloppily cobbled together with essays of middling and low quality in addition to the more polished ones. I do think some of the essays are genuinely good and I did enjoy parts of the book. But when putting out essays they should be of uniform quality, and this ain’t it, chief.
In terms of the make up of the book, I would say 50% of the essays were totally intolerable, which automatically means I cannot recommend it in good conscience. 30% of the essays were decent, and 20% were excellent. I can only assume that David had to pad the book with some slapdash work, because her best efforts show a decent writer. It’s just disappointing to read something good, and then immediately be hit in the face with the written equivalent of a leaky garbage bag.
I am probably the closest thing to an ideal reader for this book: I am a mentally ill, Ashkenazi Jewish woman in her mid-twenties who enjoys comedy. That being said, I found some of David’s writing impossible to stomach and way more self-involved than self-exploratory. She exposes a lot of vulnerability, but without any artistic merit, it is completely superfluous and soulless. If you’re going to get deep, you have to draw something out of it, and it felt more like she was like, “Look! Look at my thorny pain!” Which is fine, but not especially interesting. I did find her anxiety relatable, but at some point an essay needs to be about more than just your feelings of dread. I also felt a little weird about her insistence that she didn’t want to take medication for her mental health, which was repeated throughout the book. Why? Medication is pretty great. She described herself as someone bowing under the weight of anxiety and depression in an alternating manner, which sounds pretty terrible when the alternative is going to the doctor and possibly some side effects.
The best essays in the book are “Mean Sister,” “Tweets I Would Tweet If I Weren’t Morally Opposed to Twitter: I,” “I Got a Cat for My Anxiety,” “Moving Out,” and “Erase Me.” The rest are either outright bad or mostly forgettable, so I would advise just checking the book out of a library and reading these ones. I did enjoy reading David’s depiction of her family, which seems about as eccentric as you’d expect. Her obligatory Pete Davidson essay was actually quite impressive- being the ex of a person who suddenly becomes Very Famous for dating someone Ridiculously Famous is a rare experience. I think it comes across that Davidson was deeply mentally ill, as was David. I don’t agree that it’s an unflattering depiction of Davidson or his ex-fiancé, pop star Ariana Grande. Frankly, given how David was treated by the media and Grande’s army of child fans, the way she writes about them is fair. Leaving an emotionally exhausting and unsteady relationship is a fair thing to do, and I think becoming more Famous by Relation than David was used to effected her a lot. Being a famous person’s kid is very different than being the ex-girlfriend of the fiancé of one of the most famous people in the world. Overall, I thought it was fine.
While I wasn’t overly impressed by No One Asked for This, I will keep an eye out for further writings by David. I think her work shows a lot of potential and I’m interested to see what is next for her.
The Chamber of Spoilers 