Guess Who's Back, Back Again?

Not Shady, no! britpopbaby. And I'm here for the love of "I'm Stalking Jake!".

Britpopbaby Reviews "I'm Stalking Jake" In The Only Way Shes Knows How...Disjointed and Rambling

My first ever book review was for a creative writing class at University in 2007. I reviewed ‘Things Snowball’ by Rich Hall. After spending weeks dissecting, and prodding this book within an inch of its life all the response my Professor could muster was, ‘But you didn’t mention that Rich Hall is most famous for being a stand-up comic.’ So with that sage advice in mind, I begin my second ever book review…

Becky Heineke is not famous for being a stand-up comic. In my head she’s famous for being the only real life person I know that’s from Memphis, Tennessee, being a Beatles fan, being a Photoshop WIZZZZard, wearing slogan t-shirts, having parents that seem cooler than mine and half-heartedly stalking Jake Gyllenhaal (this book will show you there are some actual professionals out there).

On a more personal level she’s the girl I spent HOURS of my life emailing back and forth about sidebar designs, fake Myspacers, a dog called Boo, an online merchandising empire, plagiarism, strange ladies with blonde beehives called Barbie, the artistic direction of Jake Watch, lawsuits, hypersensitive Gyllenfans, hypermoody assorted Gyllenhaal relatives, really WEIRD emails from really WEIRD people, editors from US Weekly who can’t spell and occassionally, Jake Gyllenhaal (and how he wrecked everything, all the time).

For those on a tight schedule please read the Short Review:
Read this book!!! It will change your life. It’s got puggles and Sprinkles cupcakes!

Long review: It’s difficult for me to review 'I’m Stalking Jake' from any other standpoint than the one I have – like someone wrote out a year and a half from an odd point in my life and analysed it for me. I mean I could have paid serious money for that kind of therapy. But honestly, this is why I loved loved loved this book, this is why it made me laugh and cry, why it made me feel guilty, feel awesome, feel ridiculous. It reminded me how much fun we had, how angry we got, how we were determined to keep going, how we ended up in situations we really shouldn’t have and most importantly how lame Jake Gyllenhaal’s PR team are.

But if you never read Jake Watch or if you’re not even a Jake Gyllenhaal fan this book is about a million and one other things. This truly is a modern tale that shows you everything the internet has to offer from the brilliance and creativity it can reveal in people through to the sad and depressing things it can do to lonely dissatisfied souls right down to the properly dark shiz. Without sounding too over-dramatic (me? Overdramatic?!), this book is about our generation – my generation – us kids who were told working hard, getting a good education and playing by the rules was all you needed to do to get somewhere. It’s about two kids who left University and found out that that cruelly wasn’t true but we kept trying anyway (by the way, the ultimate dream was to be incredibly awesome at something we loved doing that paid lots of money rather than to get an interview with Jake Gyllenhaal).

The writing is (and I can say this as a seasoned critic – Sparkle Motion anyone?) open and honest, sometimes brutal. Most people don’t come off great, including Jake Gyllenhaal (and also me), but that’s okay because it’s the goddamn truth. I know Prophecy Girl was so popular with JW fans as she was warm, hilarious and most importantly relatable and this all transcends into print. Once you’ve finished this book you’ll feel like you’ve made a pretty cool, if slightly manic, friend and if you don’t get through reading the chapter on the Babygate incident without feeling like stamping on Stephen Gyllenhaal’s big toe on Becky’s behalf then you’re obviously dead inside. It made me howl and cringe in equal amounts at some of things we did and said (why would anyone think Stephen Gyllenhaal was the answer to anything EVER?) but wtf, it was one wicked random ride. Okay, I’m going to stop now because this is kind of sounding like an obituary.

Before I go, you get to learn a lot of things about Prophecy Girl in I’m Stalking Jake that may have been difficult for her to share, so to even the balance, here are some things about britpopbaby and her lingering thoughts that you probably didn’t need to know about:

1. I had entirely too much time on my hands at University because I didn’t read half the books I was suppose to and I’m not sure how I ever passed my degree. If I had chosen Law like my Dad wanted me to, none of us would probably even be here. Ponder that.
2. I actually did want to use Jake Watch as a springboard to a writing career (my grammar and spelling aside). I totally underestimated the hysteria, drama and general craziness associated with running a ‘fan’ site. If I had, say, a dagger that turns back time I might have stuck with my original idea – a blog on Britpop culture – hence my name. Who knew?
3. I’m so glad we quit when we did because I couldn’t have handled the Prince of Persia. Seriously, Jake? Seriously? A dagger that turns back time?
4. But on the otherhand I sometimes still feel guilty for quitting Jake Watch. That PoP haircut would have led to some truly amazing posts.
5. There were things we really didn't like about Jake Gyllenhaal.
6. I still don’t honestly know if Jake Gyllenhaal is straight, gay or bi. It truthfully didn’t matter to us a blog. The one thing that really hurt me during all of this is when we got accused of being homophobic just because we happened to think Jake was straight. I found it truly offensive (even more so than being called a Nazi Cow) and extremely narrow-minded of the people who, in their minds, were supposedly so much more liberal and educated than we were. In fact, I’ll be even more honest. We didn’t want Jake Gyllenhaal to be gay but not because we haboured some ridiculous fantasy about dating him but because I didn’t want that stupid fucking blog that STOLE my ideas and it’s deluded readership to be right. So, Jake, if you are gay, please don’t ever come out, just for the sake of our pride – you owe us that much. By the way, this isn't really covered in the book as it actually wasn't that important to the flow of the story. But I hold grudges. Go figure.
7. I still don’t regret stealing extracts from an Interview magazine, um, interview from another blog and then being sarcastically arsey about it. The back story to this event is not explained entirely in the book but I wrote that woman back SO many times, mainly because I was afraid she was going to top herself out of loneliness and she sits up all night and writes out magazine articles for other frickin’ people!!! And I still can’t believe it lead someone to sit up all night crying and downing a bottle of wine because they thought it was a personal attack. Seriously, reassess. Maybe after reading this book, you will…


Anyways....Read this book!!!

Okay, I gotta go eat ice cream. Peace out. (I only swore once, go me!)