Amanda Palmer is an extremely talented artist who has done it all- from performing in a punk rock band to posing as a statue on the streets.
I can see why readers are passionate about this book and the author. She just didn’t strike a spark for me.
Memoirs can drag on and become self-indulgent and ridiculous. I feel like that was a problem with The Art of Asking.
The tipping point for me was when she formed The Dresden Dolls with her friend and said (I’m quoting from memory here since I was listening to the audiobook): “I finally had the strongly emoting band I’d always dreamed of” or something like that.
I realized, I was strongly emoting on this book, but not in a good way.
I understand her internal struggles in forming a relationship with Neil Gaiman must have been difficult for her, but her “should I date him, he’s older and richer and more famous than me” just came off as silly and very first-world problems.
I get that she loves her fans, her art, her lifestyle- but it just come together to make a read that I enjoyed.
My apologies to her fans. If it helps, my favorite parts of the audiobook were the songs she put between some of the tracks. Those were actually pretty awesome.
And the over-arching theme of The Art of Asking was good too.
Society isn’t comfortable with asking. We don’t know how to do it, don’t feel comfortable with it and it prevents people from making the art that they were born to make.
You can get that part of this book by watching Palmer’s TED talk. Maybe you should do that instead of reading this.
Here ’tis:
https://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking
Thanks for reading.
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The Help Desk Book Blog 
I haven’t read this, but I do follow Amanda on social media and I can see where you’re coming from. On the one hand, she’s totally fierce, very talented, brave and super caring, but the flip side of that is that she tells everyone about her introspection, how she gets so tired from working and being a mother…but her husband is a millionaire so she’s not exactly a starving artist. I understand that her and Neil are separate people and she has her own career but she does have an awful lot more choice than most others who are just quietly getting on with it – and that can get really annoying. I love her for what she stands for but I’m really torn over whether to read this or not!
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