An Incredibly Insightful Look Into Modern Romance & Dating

4.5 out of 5 stars

Many of you may know Aziz from Parks & Rec, and a smaller amount may even know him from Stand-Up comedy (which is where I know him from).  One of my favorite types of non-fiction novel is one written by a comedian.  One of the first books I ever read was a comedy novel by George Carlin and I was instantly hooked.  Granted, I’m a HUGE stand-up comedy fan, but I just really enjoy the genre.

So, when I first got into this book I kind of expected it to be similar to the books I’ve read by Mike Birbiglia and Lewis Black — a commentary on Modern Romance.  But I was wrong, this is an incredibly well thought out, researched and delivered book.  Ansari combined forces with a Eric Klinenberg a professor of Sociology.

Ansari and Klinenberg created and executed numerous social experiments and research studies to look into the modern world of dating and romance.  This book is definitely as funny as it is informative.

Don’t expect sociology professors to jump on this for a college level course (but they should).  This book is still written by a comedian and it is funny, especially if you listen to the audiobook version.  Aziz’s performance in the audiobook was great — a great combination of his stand-up and narrating a book that he wrote.  He goes off book a few times (and those times are great).

I actually learned a lot through this book — the modern dating scene is both hectic and confusing and Ansari helped me understand a lot of what is going on now.  I may still be “young” in the eyes of the world, but some of the new fads that he explained just blew my mind.  The world has changed a lot in the last 10 years, especially in “modern romance”.

Overall this is definitely a 4.5 out of 5, I really liked this book and I have recommended it to numerous people — and others that already have it I’ve recommended they check it out on Audible.

Book Description:

Modern Romance
Aziz Ansari, Eric Klinenberg
Narrated byAziz Ansari, Eric KlinenbergLength6 hrs and 14 minsPublished byPenguin Audio · June 16th 2015
Comedy
Brian's rating★★★★½
Publisher description

A hilarious, thoughtful, and in-depth exploration of the pleasures and perils of modern romance from one of this generation’s sharpest comedic voices

At some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now, but it’s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history. With technology, our abilities to connect with and sort through these options are staggering. So why are so many people frustrated?

Some of our problems are unique to our time. “Why did this guy just text me an emoji of a pizza?” “Should I go out with this girl even though she listed Combos as one of her favorite snack foods? Combos?!” “My girlfriend just got a message from some dude named Nathan. Who’s Nathan? Did he just send her a photo of his penis? Should I check just to be sure?”

But the transformation of our romantic lives can’t be explained by technology alone. In a short period of time, the whole culture of finding love has changed dramatically. A few decades ago, people would find a decent person who lived in their neighborhood. Their families would meet and, after deciding neither party seemed like a murderer, they would get married and soon have a kid, all by the time they were twenty-four. Today, people marry later than ever and spend years of their lives on a quest to find the perfect person, a soul mate.

For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance, but forModern Romance, the book, he decided he needed to take things to another level. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. The result is unlike any social science or humor book we’ve seen before.

In Modern Romance, Ansari combines his irreverent humor with cutting-edge social science to give us an unforgettable tour of our new romantic world.