Self Care

A Novel

By: Leigh Stein

Narrated by: Kristen DiMercurio, Karissa Vacker, Nicole Lewis

Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

"Highbrow, brilliant." (The Approval Matrix, New York magazine)

One of Cosmopolitan's 12 Books You'll Be Dying to Read This Summer

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of Summer 2020

A Vulture Best Book of Summer 2020

One of Refinery29's 25 Books You'll Want to Read This Summer

A Book Riot Best Book of 2020 *so far

The female cofounders of a wellness start-up struggle to find balance between being good people and doing good business, while trying to stay BFFs.

Maren Gelb is on a company-imposed digital detox. She tweeted something terrible about the president's daughter, and as the COO of Richual, "the most inclusive online community platform for women to cultivate the practice of self-care and change the world by changing ourselves", it's a PR nightmare. Not only is CEO Devin Avery counting on Maren to be fully present for their next round of funding, but indispensable employee Khadijah Walker has been keeping a secret that will reveal just how feminist Richual’s values actually are, and former Bachelorette contestant and Richual board member Evan Wiley is about to be embroiled in a sexual misconduct scandal that could destroy the company forever.

Have you ever scrolled through Instagram and seen countless influencers who seem like experts at caring for themselves - from their yoga crop tops to their well-lit clean meals to their serumed skin and erudite-but-color-coded reading stack? Self Care delves into the lives and psyches of people working in the wellness industry and exposes the world behind the filter.

©2020 Leigh Stein (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Self Care is a skewering mockumentary about influencer culture, internet feminism, and the infinite ways that big tech capitalizes on our worst fears and insecurities. Utterly teeming with humor, this is exactly the sort of book that Dorothy Parker would have written if she’d been reincarnated as an Instagram celebrity." (Catherine Lacey, author of The Answers and Certain American States: Stories)

"Wickedly talented Leigh Stein - for my money, one of our sharpest millennial writers - knows the internet, and she's used that intimate knowledge to write a pitch-perfect novel for our times. Self Care is a hilarious and sneakily moving send-up of what it means to try and live when every move you make is observed and dissected online, by a writer who sees the truth and says it with so much humor and heart you'll laugh (and maybe cry) out loud." (Julie Buntin, author of Marlena)

"A titillating satire about our quest for validation and the lengths that some will go to for #selfactualization, Self Care is an intelligent, delightful read that will make your mind (and epidermis!) glow." (Courtney Maum, author of Touch and Costalegre)

Boring satire

I wanted to like this. I found it tiresome because I did not care about the characters. They seemed narcissistic to me. I am deleting it from my library.

Satire

This is satire. People! You're not expected to love the characters!
Satire:
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
I found it funny; a lot of clever writing . Might have to listen to it more than once to fully appreciate 😅

Loved it

Contemporary, funny and well read. I look forward to reading more by this authors and listening to more books narrated by the 3 readers.

Great!

Took me a while to get into it but I really enjoyed this book. Very funny and thoughtful.

Could not put it down

What a great book! The story honestly explores so many aspects of the digital, social media driven world we deal with on a daily basis.

Indulgence

I’ve been so interested in the start up world, VCs, women started businesses, that this was such a treat for me to read/listen to. The narrators did a great job of bringing the characters to life as well.
I have a confession to make... have you ever found yourself....I’ve never told anyone this.... but the timing and reflection of what is dominating women’s social media right now is so perfect.

I'll never get those 6 1/2 hours back

This was awful. It was boring and completely predictable. Was it supposed to make me laugh?

So bad

I actually didn’t even make it through this book, which is rare for me. I gave up halfway through. The plot, characters and pretty much everything else about this book was just dull.

Shallow

I had high hopes but incredibly predictable and overall dull characters. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

Read it for a book club, but would not recommend

The narration was good through audible, but I couldn't get myself to really care about the storyline. The characters were fairly well developed but none were really likeable. The topic felt shallow. Maybe that was the point, to point out how addicted many of us are to social media and luxury items, but it wasn't worth reading a book about it.