How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life
Ratings4
Average rating3.8
A brilliant portrayal of finding a beautiful life by one of Canada's most exciting literary talents, now available as an Anansi Book Club edition featuring discussion questions. How Should a Person Be? is an unabashedly honest and hilarious tour through the unknowable pieces of one woman’s heart and mind, an irresistible torn-from-life book about friendship, art, sex, and love. Part literary novel, part self-help manual, and part racy confessional, it is a fearless exploration into the way we live now by one of the most highly inventive and thoughtful young writers working today.
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Popular Reviews
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3.5
I swear this book knew what it was so hard. It makes you want to be mean to it because that's exactly how the author felt about the MC. Projection maybe but I still want to be mean to it.
I did enjoy the last bit after my page status update more than probably the rest of the book so it redeemed it a little in my eyes. The last two acts wrapped up a lot of the questions posed throughout the book but I don't think it was nearly enough to say this is a memorable read. I do think it is one I might reread in the future though.
For the first half of the book I did enjoy the mundanity of the MC's life and really saw how this could easily be the memoir of a current twenty-something vlogger just shooting daily content.
The writing was great in places and not-so-great in others. As another person on here said, the “utter baseness” isn't what got to me so much as some of the conversations and relationships highlighted that didn't ground any of the surrounding context. The author was more successful than not when she went for some mighty metaphors but when she didn't hit the mark, it was a little jarring and took me out of the book.
