You're Embarrassing Yourself
Stories of Love, Lust, and Movies
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Writer, actor, and director Desiree Akhavan shares the stories she was told to shut up about—hilarious, horny, heartbreaking tales of a life in pursuit of art, love, and a better haircut.
“Hilariously raw, relatable, and—dare I even say—sexy.”—Jessi Klein
When it comes to shame, Desiree Akhavan knows what she’s talking about—whether it’s winning the title of the Ugliest Girl at her high school, acquiescing to the nose job she was lovingly forced into by her Iranian parents, or losing her virginity to a cokehead she met in a support group for cutters. In You’re Embarrassing Yourself, Akhavan goes to the rawest places—the lifelong struggle to be at peace in one’s body, the search for home as the child of immigrants, the anxious underbelly of artistic ambition—in pursuit of wisdom, catharsis, and lolz.
Equal parts funny and heartfelt, these seventeen essays chart an artist’s journey from outcast to overnight indie darling, to (somewhat) self-aware adult woman. The result is a collection that captures the pathetic lows and euphoric highs of our youth—and how to survive them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Actor and filmmaker Akhavan reflects on her heritage, her romantic disappointments, and her 1990s coming-of-age in this funny and incisive debut memoir-in-essays. The daughter of Iranian immigrants who sent Akhavan and her siblings to one of New York City's most exclusive private schools, Akhavan knew early on she was a "different species" from her peers. At 14, her classmates nicknamed her the Beast and included her on a list of the school's "ugliest girls," a designation that haunted her into adulthood ("I was the Beast for so long that even once I crawled my way to something different, I couldn't decide what I'd become without looking to strangers for answers"). The essays on Akhavan's failed relationships have their charms—especially the one about her first heartbreak at a women's college in Massachusetts, which brilliantly balances humor and pathos—but she's at her most heartrending when she looks elsewhere, writing about her quest to feel at home in an immigrant community that struggles to accept her queerness, or cataloging how her best friend's motherhood impinges upon their relationship. By the moving final entry, in which Akhavan surprises herself by realizing that she, too, wants to become a mother, she's charted an endearingly crooked path to maturity. This is a winner.
