Read This to Look Cool

For fans of Dolly Alderton or Samantha Irby, Read This to Look Cool is a hilarious and insightful collection of essays exploring the woes of growing up online, social anxiety, and constantly trying to portray an artificial version of yourself.

This book won't fix you, but imagine how cool you'll look carrying it around...

Maeve Dunigan has poured a lifetime of effort into seeming effortlessly chill. The results have been ... mixed. Nonetheless, Maeve still believes she's one pair of leather pants, one perfect use of the word "bespoke," and one jar of expensive olives away from self-actualization. She'll never stop trying, no matter how bespoke things get (was that right?).

With sharp wit and unflinching honesty, Maeve shares her own misadventures—like the time she quietly endured a ruptured appendix at McDonald's so she wouldn't come off as dramatic—and explores the universal desire to belong. She invites readers into her world of One Direction fanfiction authorship and passive-aggressive yogurt mind games, detailing the anxieties that come with living in an age of constant visibility.

Both cringe-inducing and uproarious, Read This to Look Cool is a deeply relatable meditation on the absurdity inherent in the constant performance of ourselves, offering a fresh perspective on self-love and the true meaning of cool. It's a book that says "I see you" and also "Don't look at me, though, my hair is doing something weird."