She's Nice Though
Essays on Being Bad at Being Good
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
AN NPR BOOK-OF-THE-DAY • A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY STAFF PICK • A NYLON MUST-READ • A FORTUNE NEW BOOK TO READ IN AUGUST
“And, at the center of it all, am I actually nice or am I just performing a role I think I’m expected to play?” Mia Mercado is a razor-sharp cultural critic and essayist known for her witty and hilarious dissections of the uncomfortable truths that rule our lives. In this thought-provoking collection of new essays, Mercado examines what it means to be “polite,” “agreeable,” and “nice.” She covers topics from the subtleties of the “Bad Bitch” and why women dominate the ASMR market, to what makes her dog an adorable little freak and how you know if you’re shy. This is a book about the unspoken trick mirror of our “good” intentions: the inherent performance of the social media apology, celebrating men when they do the bare minimum, and why we trust a Midwesterner to watch our stuff when we go pee.
Throughout, she ponders her identity as an Asian woman and asks what “nice” even means—and why anyone would want to be it. With writing that is as precise as it is profound, and cultural references that range from trash reality television to the New York Times Sunday-morning crossword puzzle, Mercado uncovers weird, long-overdue truths about our frailties and failings. In the end, she sees them not as a source of shame but as a cause for celebration. Filled with revelations that range from the silly to the serious,
She’s Nice Though offers a mind-bending glimpse into the illusions and delusions of contemporary life—and reveals who we *really* are when no one is watching.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mercado (Weird but Normal), a blogger for The Cut, returns with another collection of humorous essays exploring her experience as an Asian woman from the Midwest. She reflects on the performativity of niceness, the dangers of agreeability, and the power dynamics of race and gender, in essays both snarky and sharp. "How to Be Nice" is a guide to kindness that advises such strategies as "giving a wedgie to everyone who asks you questions like, ‘So, where are you really from'," while "Bad Answers to Good Questions and Vice Versa," collects sardonic responses to matchmaking questions from the New York Times ("I'd wish for more wishes"). "Kill Them with Kindness and Other Imagined Crime Podcasts" features a list of tongue-in-cheek podcasts pitches including "How to Get Away with Murder: A series on how to turn your side hustle (murder) into a full-time gig (more murders)," and "Apologies for Men" imagines an infomercial for a product that helps men cope with messing up. Mercado maintains her self-deprecating humor while offering serious reflections on American culture, and the mix hits home, notably in "A Strange and Unprecedented Time," an insightful take on the pandemic as told in a diarylike record of her lockdown experience. Mercado's fans will eat this up.
