I'll Be Awesome Tomorrow

Marian Sandmaier's memoir is a provocative anti-self-help prescription-a bold argument for letting go of the seductive, perilous pursuit of perfection.

From the time she was eight years old, Marian Sandmaier was fixated on one shining goal-to make herself perfect. She had no interest in tweaks or enhancements: Her ambition was to achieve a full-on personality transplant, exchanging an awkward, uncertain girl for a young goddess who was wildly charming and totally immune to rejection. Over the next fifteen years, Sandmaier's ceaseless efforts to hold herself to this impossible standard led to a destructive intimate relationship and an ever-deepening sense of failure. She would be perfect, damn it-or die trying.

I'll Be Awesome Tomorrow is a searingly honest account of one woman's relentless struggle to be flawless-and to finally feel worthy of love. But it also traces what comes after: the author's slow, strenuous, and ultimately lifesaving work of facing her past and welcoming back her banished self. For anyone who has ever sought to be exemplary-in one's career, body, personality, or relationships-to the point of exhaustion, this memoir shows that you can choose a gentler, more self-embracing path.