I'll Show Myself Out

Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

By: Jessi Klein

Narrated by: Jessi Klein

Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

The eagerly anticipated second essay collection from Jessi Klein, author of the acclaimed New York Times best-selling debut You’ll Grow Out of It.

“Sometimes I think about how much bad news there is to tell my kid, the endlessly long, looping CVS receipt scroll of truly terrible things that have happened, and I want to get under the bed and never come out. How do we tell them about all this? Can we just play Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire and then brace for questions? The first of which should be, how is this a song that played on the radio?”

In New York Times best-selling author and Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Jessi Klein’s second collection, she hilariously explodes the cultural myths and impossible expectations around motherhood and explore the humiliations, poignancies, and possibilities of midlife. 

In interconnected essays like “Listening to Beyoncé in the Parking Lot of Party City”, “Your Husband Will Remarry Five Minutes After You Die”, “Eulogy for My Feet”, and “An Open Love Letter to Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent”, Klein explores this stage of life in all its cruel ironies, joyous moments, and bittersweetness.

Written with Klein’s signature candor and humanity, I'll Show Myself Out is an incisive, moving, and often uproarious collection.

©2022 Jessi Klein (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Complete sanctimommy navel gaze

Maybe I’m the only woman in America who doesn’t think the fact that I raised a child makes me a hero of some sort. I love my kid. I’m proud of her but she’s a person all on her own. I don’t need continual congratulations for it. I certainly don’t want it to be one of my primary descriptors.
I should have known when the author opened with a corn syrup load of loving drivel for the Eat Pray Love pablum that it wasn’t the book for me.

True, hilarious and moving

Poignant and funny and above all a true depiction of the journey a woman takes when she becomes a mother. I feel heard and seen.

Remarkably relatable

Funny, fluid, lighthearted and remarkably relatable listen. Highly recommend. This should be a show. Bravo!

Truly relatable book about motherhood

I loved this book. It was funny, real and relatable, and showed the mixed emotions that real women have about motherhood in a way that I rarely see in any sort of public way. I laughed and cried at times seeing my own experience reflected. Thank you for sharing this with the world Jessi Klein!

yup!

I felt so seen and heard with this book. it made me feel not alone in the many expectations that are placed on moms to know all the answers. and then how much pressure we put on ourselves. and then also wanting to be our own person. but also loving being a mom. and the constant balancing of it. I laughed and loved this book!

This is motherhood.

I laughed so hard I cried. Also separately cried and laughed. Brilliantly expressed. Thank you, Jessi!

Validation at its finest and funniest

One of the most honest and hilarious books about motherhood I’ve ever read, with stories of so many small moments that I, too, have experienced and always wondered if anyone else had too. I laughed out loud throughout the whole book. Essential reading for any mother who has been parenting little people below the age of 5, particularly through the pandemic.

I Feel Seen and Cared For

I literally listened to this book in 2 days and loved and related to every second of it. I've never felt like how I thought moms were supposed to feel. Glad to know I'm not alone on this wild, depressing, elating, beautiful and anxiety-ridden experience. Just wow. thank you Jessi!!!

Loved this book so much !

Jessi is my new favorite author. I love her so much. I have a 2 year old daughter and this is just what I needed to unwind and relax. I'm disappointed to finish it, now what will I listen to? Looking for more books by Jessi right now.

Tedious.

I loved Jessi Klein’s previous book. This one - not so much. Gone are her spark and humor. This book felt tedious, monotone, and, at times, confusing oversharing with sincerity. Her description of peeling dry skin off her cracked heels turned my stomach. The author wants to be relatable and human in her big story of motherhood, yet her only child is barely 5 at the end of the book, and the author’s neurosis and anxiety are palpable in her description of every experience she has as a mother. I could barely finish the book which I had so eagerly anticipated.

Brilliant, funny, relatable and comforting

I really loved this book. As a new(ish) mum who is perpetually clueless about what to do and feeling lost in a world of ‘mom culture’, I need more books like this to feel sane! It was incredibly relatable and funny - ultimately very healing!