I read this a while back and wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it overall when I finished it. A couple months later, I think I took less from it than I thought I would. Half sociological look at modern dating, apps, and hookup culture, half Sex and the City knock off. The parts that fall in the first category were much more interesting to me than the second category. I guess I don’t get that into reading about other people sleeping with randos half their age from an app in their apartment building’s gym while their teenage daughter is asleep upstairs. It’s fine....live your life, do your thing, good call on not doing it where your kid could stumble upon you but...why should I care? While it’s billed more as “dating via dating apps,” that’s not at all why the writer used apps. She used them solely for hookups. Again, that’s fine. Just don’t claim you’re writing about one thing under the guise of another. Part of the reason I didn’t like the personal experience sections the way they were written was that Sales blamed the apps for her troubles fairly often when really she was just making shitty decisions.

The most interesting parts to me weren’t her own experiences, but those of people she spoke to and interviewed, both friends and strangers while filming a documentary on the same subject. There’s great commentary on connections feeling more disposable when you have and endless roster of faces at your disposal just by picking up your phone. The impact of apps and social media on teenage girls was especially good.

I still hate the cover.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free digital copy. The book will be published mid-May 2021.

"NANCY JO. THIS IS ALEXIS NEIERS CALLING. I’M CALLING TO LET YOU KNOW HOW DISAPPOINTED I AM IN YOUR STORY. THERE’S MANY THINGS THAT I READ IN HERE THAT WERE FALSE. LIKE YOU SAYING THAT I WORE SIX INCH LOUBOUTIN HEELS WITH MY TWEED SKIRT, WHEN I WORE FOUR INCH LITTLE BROWN BEBE SHOES-”

This was my introduction to Nancy Jo Sales....the notorious scene from "Pretty Wild" about the famous Bling Ring article. What it didn't do, was tell me anything about Nancy Jo. Nothing Personal provided more details about the woman behind the expose articles that I've been reading for years.

This is a better Sex and the City, because, 1) it's modern, 2) it's realistic, 3) there are facts. Written as a look back on a relationship--or relationships--in the modern digital age, Nancy Jo discusses the new way of dating. Of dating apps and hook up culture. While she's making a documentary about the horrors that women experiences on dating apps, she herself is using them.

This is a memoir that could be viewed as a reference guide into dating and swiping. Nancy Jo is honest about her life, her sexuality, her aging. It's refreshing!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book. Nancy Jo, thank YOU for writing this - and for expelling the voicemail message clip that I have for you. I'll think about you running away from a friend - for a man - but finding that the love that you needed - was there all along.

Having never used a dating app I thought this might be a fun book just to read about the horror of the experience. And while it certainly had some of that it just didn’t seem to find the balance of humor and dry research/data. It certainly presents an interesting perspective on how dating apps have caused women to devalue themselves even more. I didn’t finish it but I am sure there is an audience for it.

I was excited to give this one a go, as I love Nancy Jo Sales past critical lens on our culture. Who doesn't love the Bling Ring??

This one felt harder to get into. Her weaving of her experiences in app dating with her formative relationships aren't as seamless as I would hope, making the book feel meandering and aimless. The sociology perspectives dropped in also felt disjointed. I love Sales' voice and her willingness to be open and vulnerable, but this book feels a little too broad to really capitalize on that.

Did not finish. Couldn’t get into it. Needs a good editor. I’m a writer and editor for 20 years and I think it needs more time.

Sales shares her experiences with dating apps and relationships in Nothing Personal. She also discusses her previous relationships and her parents’ lives. One guy, Abel, she spent four years with as friends with benefits, even after she discovered he was having sex with other people and lying to her. She finally broke it off but then he is the last person she gives credit to on the acknowledgment page, which I didn’t understand. I couldn’t relate to this book very well since online dating, casual hookups, and random sex with strangers are explored and is a world that is foreign to me. Dating is difficult and Sales’ book displays even casual dating has its pitfalls.

I tried multiple times to get into this book and I just never found it very interesting. Honestly, it just didn’t seem to provide any new info on the dating world. Just seemed like the same old stories I’ve heard enough times already. I was not sure what point she was trying to get at or where the book was going. Unfortunately I couldn’t bring myself to finish this book, which seemed incredibly long for not having much to say.

While I’ve enjoyed the authors other content this was a disappointment. I was lost in the content more than once.

While I found some of the stories of online dating interesting (as someone who has no personal experience or know anyone who does), they began to be repetitive after awhile. I'm not sure the author had as much to say as she thought she did.

Sadly I could not get into this book. This was less of a sociological study and more of a choppy memoir about dating in your fifties. I should have read more into it before I started reading. It’s a shame because I love Sales’ writing, but it just wasn’t resonating with me as a reader.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley!

I'm not sure what I expected out of this book, but honestly, this just fell flat in general.
I couldn't bring myself to finish it sadly.

An author with an entertaining style of writing a clear voice.We go along with her adventures with dating apps as she shares her experiences.We go along for the good and bad times.Really enjoyed following her adventures,#netgalley#hatchettebooks

This gave me serious sex and the city vibes and im here for it!
As Nancy Jo Sales tells her story with online dating along with other experiences as well as studies that have been done. i love a good online dating story and this gave me all the things i wanted. Everyone should read this in their early 20s

A real life tale of the "Swipe Right" generation and how one woman navigates this 'brave new world' of sex, dating, and technology. With technology weaving its way into every aspect of our lives it was only a matter of time before it had a huge effect on our relationships. Nancy discuss using the apps, how she lost and found love, and what an app centric sex life looks like in middle age. Using her wealth of knowledge she brings up interesting points about how our relationships, sex lives, and prevalence or lack there of is effected by this new trend of swiping.

Nancy Jo Sales has such a distinct voice and a talent for narrative non-fiction. In Nothing Personal, she chronicles her own experience with dating apps airs out the good, the bad, and everything in between. Really interesting.

I found this super relatable at first and some throughout because I am out in the world of dating apps...BUT, I did feel like things got very repetitive feeling. It also wasn’t quite what I expected. I thought it would be a series of stories about her experiences, but it kept circling back to the same WAY younger man-child and I was over it pretty quickly. This could have gone a much better direction. Thinking I need to write a book of my stories 😆

This book provides humor and made me laugh at loud at times. The writing style was a bit confusing at times, as I felt there could have been more backstory for the various plot lines. I enjoyed the raw honesty of Sales' stories and experiences.

I loved reading this fascinating memoir of the writer’s experiences with the world of online dating. The pitfalls along with the positive surprises kept me glued to the pages!

I only made it to 7% and have no desire to finish. I expected it to be a little more humorous but it was dry and all over the place. Skipping from one instance to another and I lost track of timeline and everything which made me lose interest quickly. I appreciate the author, publisher and Netgalley giving me the chance to review for my honest opinion.

There will be a more refined review heading up onto review sites and blogs coming soon.

I was drawn to this book instantly because I love a good dating app debauchery story. Having come up in an age where majority of my friends and I were meeting our partners (and friends) online by the time high school and college came around, I can usually relate to the absurdity of the stories and the complete exhaustiveness of dealing with people on various social media platforms. I was eager to dive in!

By 15% through the book, I had so many highlighted sections already, which is quite unusual for me. I rarely highlight more than 2 times in an entire book. Unfortunately, it was not for the positive reasons you'd hope it would be. It was not funny and certainly wasn't the, "brilliant investigation into the challenges to love and intimacy wrought by dating apps", that it's being packaged as. It reads more as a bitter, out-of-touch, painfully unaware person wrought with privilege.

The sentence, "Some of them were atheists and some called themselves "ethically non-monogamous", is eye-rolling and frustrating on its own. They don't "call themselves" that, they ARE ethically non-monogamous. A very real, valid, and functional scenario. If Nancy Jo was, at all, the dating app expert she pretends to be, she'd know that dating apps are a hotbed of poly and ENM seeking people, because it has created a way for them to openly connect. Good grief. They are not pariahs, they are adults seeking as valid as a relationship archetype as her own hookup seeking.

In regards to someone she spoke saying [women] can't post anywhere online without wondering if a guy from Tinder or Bumble might be checking them out, is also so out of touch. Most dating apps don't give out your handle or a link to your account, they just integrate the pics into the feed. Something you can NOT DO if you don't want random people finding you without consent. They fail to mention that many people put their handles in their bios, something else that can be swiftly rectified by....deleting the handle from the bio. A shocking revelation, I know.

Before I move on to a, hopefully, better book, I just want to say there was one entirely bizarre passage that was so uncomfortable to even read. It went, as follows,
"Once, when I was sitting on the toilet, a bold-eyed little lizard appeared on the windowsill, on the other side of the screen, and his crimson throat started pulsing in and out, in and out, while he was staring right at me, and I knew that this had something to do with sex, and I was both freaked out by it and quite flattered".

What on Earth? It's so cringey to even look at that passage.

After many more pages highlighted quotes of cringe and secondhand embarrassment, I made the decision to shelve the book as a did-not-finish.

The book reads as a 2004 LiveJournal entry written by a grandma trying so hard to fit in with ~the youths~ but ultimately ends up only appealing to other grandmas who want to scare their adult grandchildren out of using dating apps. I'm just baffled at this, who is the target audience even?