I was recently sent a copy of IT by Alexa Chung to review and was excited to get my hands on it. I LOVE the faded pink binding and the simplicity of the cover. I often choose books by their covers, the same way I choose wine, but this one didn’t really live up to IT.
I can’t say I didn’t like it, or that it didn’t meet my expectations because honestly, I didn’t know Alexa Chung wrote a book until I received the offer, but it wasn’t anything to write home about either. However, I would read it again, so there IS something alluring about it, I just can’t put my finger on IT.
I can describe it best by saying It’s like a personal memoir/almost style guide that is too cool to be either.
No one can deny Alexa Chung’s cool factor or IT Girl status. Whatever IT is, she has it. But this book felt like the publishing house had a meeting and decided that this IT girl could sell books, ran it by her, she agreed and then literally threw it together in a day. So in that way, it’s cool and also totally uncool. And maybe it’s just so cool that I don’t get it?
There are random drawings, and photos of people and things without descriptions or labels, which of course, are gritty, out of focus, dark and dirty, and very amateur-looking. There are no chapters or section titles and you often feel like you’ve missed a page that had the title on it when it jumps from one idea to the next. Her style icons are that of my own, and that of many, like Annie Hall and Twiggy, and the ’60s, and old movies, and rockstars. But you can tell just by looking at Alexa that she’s inspired by the ’60s, and Mick Jagger, and Wednesday Adams, and wearing baby doll dresses with peter pan collars… Duh. I guess I just wanted more than the obvious.
Here’s what I did like about IT: I read it overnight. I still LOVE the cover, which makes a nice coffee table book included in a vignette. It would also make a great girlfriend gift if paired with something else, like a feather, or a cocktail napkin from a bar with a note on it to use as a bookmark, because anything else would be so ultimately un-cool, it wouldn’t measure up.
But yeah, I’d still probably read it again and recommend it as well. I’m just not sure why.
Photos of Alexa Chung and her book via her Instagram account @chungalexa … first photo is my own.
