Book Review: Life's Short, Talk Fast

Fast-talking, warm-hearted, and endlessly rewatchable, Gilmore Girls has bonded real-life mothers and daughters since 2000, when its iconic pilot introduced us to Lorelai, Rory, and their idyllic Connecticut town of Stars Hollow. More than twenty years later, it has become one of the most-streamed TV shows, ever.

In an anthology as intimate and quick-witted as Gilmore Girls itself, best-selling author Ann Hood invites fifteen writers to investigate their personal relationships to the show. (“It’s a show? It’s a lifestyle. It’s a religion.”) Joanna Rakoff considers how Emily Gilmore helped her understand her own mother; Sanjena Sathian sees herself—and Asian American defiance—in Lane Kim; Freya North connects with her son through the show; Francesco Sedita discovers an antidote to pandemic loneliness; Nina de Gramont offers a comic ode to the unreality of Stars Hollow. For anyone who identifies as Team Logan, Team Jess, or even Team Dean, Life’s Short, Talk Fast reveals what Gilmore Girls tells us about ourselves—and why it matters.

Life's Short, Talk Fast will be released on November 12, 2024. W.W. Norton and Company provided an early galley for review.

I have always been a fan of this show. I watched it first run on TV, I own the six of seven seasons of the series on DVD, and if fictional characters qualify for a "hall pass", Lorelai would certainly have fallen on my list at one point. Therefore, the description of this one very much got my attention.

The book features essays from fifteen different writers, both women and men, as they reflect upon the show and its impact in their lives. It is a very easy read, comfortable and honest - much like the show that inspired the collection here.

I could not help but chuckle at one of the male writers who found the fast-talking banter of the characters to be a huge turn-off or at one of the female writers who made a point to count how many coats Lorelai went through in just the first two seasons alone. While the former was very much a necessary feature of the show, the latter serves as a reminder of how shows like this one reflect and promote styles.

Fans of Gilmore Girls will enjoy this one.