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How Should a Person Be?
How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life | Sheila Heti
A raw, startling, genre-defying novel of friendship, sex, and love in the new millenniuma compulsive read that's like "spending a day with your new best friend" (Bookforum)Reeling from a failed marriage, Sheila, a twentysomething playwright, finds herself unsure of how to live and create. When Margaux, a talented painter and free spirit, and Israel, a sexy and depraved artist, enter her life, Sheila hopes that through closesometimes too closeobservation of her new friend, her new lover, and herself, she might regain her footing in art and life.Using transcribed conversations, real emails, plus heavy doses of fiction, the brilliant and always innovative Sheila Heti crafts a work that is part literary novel, part self-help manual, and part bawdy confessional. It's a totally shameless and dynamic exploration into the way we live now, which breathes fresh wisdom into the eternal questions: What is the sincerest way to love? What kind of person should you be?
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largetown531
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It was not what I wanted, not what I had been picturing, but I adjusted myself to the reality of it. Better to have a good imagination than a good grilled cheese sandwich, I told myself. Then, thinking of Margaux: Better to have your failure right in front of you than the fantasy in your head.

largetown531 Still figuring out how I felt about this one... 1y
3 likes1 stack add1 comment
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Hannah_11
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Pickpick

What a quirky little book. Really refreshing to read such a brutally honest and slightly mad account of what it‘s like to be a woman in your twenties! Surprisingly funny too! Actually laughed aloud at some points!
#pick #feminist #book #reading #summer

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CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian
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Pickpick

I somehow simultaneously think this book is genius, but also see how it's pretentious and annoying? There are many passages with startlingly brash wisdom, exemplified with the brilliant beginning. It's half novel, half memoir sometimes written in play format. It's about a white woman in her 20s trying to be a writer (and person). She reminded me of Holden Caulfield. I loved that the heart of the book is her friendship with fellow artist Margaux.

34 likes1 stack add1 comment
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CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian
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Is this, or is this not, the perfect opening to a book?

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CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian
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Going to continue with my excellent work of reading the books l already own! Just finished Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi and now onto this uniquely structured feminist novel/memoir/play/self help book/whatever the heck it wants to be. #CanLit

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mauveandrosysky
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Pickpick

This is one of the more structurally unique books I‘ve read—Fiction? Memoir? Self-help book? Some parts are written like a play? It‘s exactly as philosophical as the title indicates, and I ate it right up. This is absolutely not a book for everyone. Many readers would find it navel-gazing, pretentious, boring. Honestly I found it quite refreshing to read a book that could be categorized as such that wasn‘t written by a man. I really loved it.

Suet624 Sounds like my kind of book! 6y
merelybookish I loved this book and am waiting to get my hands on her new one 6y
mauveandrosysky @merelybookish Yes I‘m definitely going to read it, too! 6y
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mrozzz Yes! I really liked this one 👌🏻 6y
BooksForEmpathy Ohhh here it is! Haha. Was wondering which one you were talking about on my post!! Her new one was just 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻. (edited) 6y
mauveandrosysky @BooksForEmpathy I can‘t wait to read it! 6y
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shutupsmalls

May the Lord have mercy on me for I am a fucking idiot.

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Lizstarks
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The problem is the puer ever anticipates loss, disappointment, and suffering - which they foresee at the end of every experience, so they cut themselves off at the beginning, retreating almost at once in order to protect themselves.

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amyf0x
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Pickpick

A complex book that‘s seemingly all about the author-protagonist but ends up being about female friendship.

Read April 5-8
Book 13/50

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SeeJaneRead
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Oh shit this book gets it

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LapReader
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Mehso-so

I started to read this on the flight to NZ. It was hilarious in the beginning but is getting a bit weird towards the middle. She has left her husband but I‘m yet to find out exactly why other than she shouldn‘t have married him in the 1st place.
I 💙 this spa at the Ree‘s Hotel in Queenstown. It‘s a beautiful place if you ever visit this part of the world. Great service & location. Just a leisurely stroll or a quick water taxi away from town.

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youneverarrived
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Saturday morning reading in bed ❤️❤️ #anunreturnedbook #riotgrams

57 likes1 stack add
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CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian
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Uh-oh I bought a book today even know I'm not supposed to be buying any! Oh well it was only $2 from my library's book sale table and I've been wanting to read this for a while! #CanLit

30 likes1 stack add
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youneverarrived
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Went to the library to drop some books back in and came out with these two. The tagged book has been on my tbr for a while and Before Night Falls is my Cuba pick for #passportlitsy

merelybookish I really liked the Heti book! 7y
youneverarrived @merelybookish ah that‘s good to know! I‘ve heard mixed reviews but I‘m really looking forward to reading it. 7y
merelybookish @youneverarrived Yeah it's a book I can understand not appealing to lots of people but there was a freshness and honesty I liked. 7y
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shortsarahrose
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TbrandBeyond Love it! Thanks for joining in ❤️ 8y
5 likes1 comment
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susanw
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I'm sure there are more I've totally blocked from my mind and a lot more I should have dumped but suffered through #DNF #readjanuary @RealLifeReading

readinginthedark I bailed on The White Tiger, too! 8y
BookNerdBritt The White Tiger was a "meh" read for me. 8y
79 likes2 comments
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BookishKateNYC
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Pickpick

I read this book during the days leading up to my 30th birthday and am not sure I would have the same response that I did if I had read it at a different moment it my life. It was one of those reading experiences when you sigh to yourself "Someone gets me" and you feel less alone as a result. Heti's "novel" is an acquired taste and I am glad I waited till I was older to read this one.

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BooksForYears
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#ReadJanuary Day 1 - Bookish Resolutions

I've made "a few" reading resolutions for 2017. Here's hoping they're met!

?Goodreads goal of 52 books
?Reading through the Penguin Drop Caps series for #LitsyAToZ with @BookishMarginalia
?The 2017 @bookriot #ReadHarder Challenge
?Expanding my poetry consumption with #LitsyPoetry365 & @SharonGoforth
?Getting BINGO w/ #LitsyReadingChallenge
?Reading my own damn books
?Continuing #WinterOfWomen17

Penny_LiteraryHoarders Nice Resolutions! 8y
Lesliereads OMG BooksForYears - I SO need to read my own damn 📚 😜Best of luck with all your 2017 aspirations! 8y
BooksForYears @Lesliereads Thank you! I'll still buy some books and visit my local library, but I want to make more of an effort to read what I already have. 8y
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Cinfhen Nice goals 8y
OrangeMooseReads Oooh I hadn't heard of the poetry challenge. I'm going to have to jump on that. 8y
Zelma I'm with you on reading my own damn books! I have been ordering a few too many and also use the library so often that I need to read from my own shelves. Got to make room for my next batch of arcs from ALA in June. 😋 8y
SharonGoforth @BooksForYears Awesome goals!! @OrangeMooseReads Please join us in #LitsyPoetry365. We'd love to have you! 8y
Sjo_m Fab goals!! Hope you complete all and look forward to reading your progress updates over the year! 🙌😁 8y
BooksForYears @Sjo_m Thank you so much!! 8y
Redjewel_7734 I definitely need to focus on reading my own damn books too...it's just so hard to resist all the new shiny books im the library, in the bookstores, on my friends shelves...😂 8y
190 likes10 comments
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trumanpeyote
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When I strip away my dreams, what I imagine to be my potential, all the things I haven‘t said, what I imagine I feel for other people in the absence of expressing it, all the rules I‘ve made for myself that I don‘t follow– I see that I‘ve done as little as anyone else in this world to deserve the grand moniker I. In fact, apart from being the only person living in this apartment, I‘m not sure what distinguishes me.

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trumanpeyote
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It was the most moving thing I had ever seen, painted so tenderly and with such a loose hand that it hardly seemed like it had been any work at all... I discovered it was Manet, one of my favorite painters. I wondered at this; was there something in his hand or his soul – or elsewhere – that was essentially him, so much so that it compelled me every time, and made me love everything that was his, without even knowing it was?

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Cpokrzywa
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"Several years ago, when I was engaged to be married but afraid to go through with it....I told Misha my fears....he finally said, "The only thing I ever understood is that everyone should make big mistakes." So I took what he said to heart and got married. Three years later I was divorced."

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Cpokrzywa
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Picking up a stack of books. Support independent booksellers!

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Scithighs

Have any of you read this? It is a NYT Notable book, but I am really struggling I am on part 2 but I just feel like I am wasting my time!

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KendallMorganHall
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Pickpick

This book is about a young woman with existential questions. It is about friendship, and making art, and identity. It is beautifully written and funny in parts. I really enjoyed it but I wonder if it is for everyone?

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