Compare and Contrast: Emily Gould’s “Friendship” and Amy Sohn’s “The Actress”

It’s publication day for both Amy Sohn and Emily Gould! Because they’re both women, we should look inside these two new novels and see what they have in common! Isn’t that the totally obvious and meaningful thing to do if you sit back and think about it for a minute???

• Both women.

• Written in English.

• Books are printed on off-white-ish paper with black-ish ink.

• Both contain women speaking out loud sometimes.

• Neither are Lena Dunham somehow???

• The first word of both books is “the.”

• Emily’s is blurbed by three men and one woman and Amy’s is blurbed by all women (ooh and one man! The symmetry!).

• Both authors clearly have loose morals because they have spoken too frankly in public, particularly about sex, and therefore should not be taken seriously.

• Both books seem to be demands for attention, because they were both published.

• Neither are Mira Jacob, who also is a woman with a book out today, called The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, but she gets compared to Jhumpa Lahiri in Kirkus instead, because, whispers, you know, her parents are from India, so she’s definitely not Lena Dunham, even though she grew up in New Mexico and went to Oberlin and lives in Brooklyn just like everyone else.

Why not buy all of them — here’s Emily’s and here’s Amy’s and here’s Mira’s — and see just how much these women books have in common! Or just buy one, surely they’re totally identical in most ways.

BONUS ROUND:

Here’s Emily and Amy in cahoots four years ago.