How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life

By Sheila Heti

Book Overview

Chosen as one of fifteen remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write in the 21st century by the book critics of The New York Times.

Named a Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, Flavorpill, The New Republic, The New York Observer, The Huffington Post.

"Funny . . . odd, original, and nearly unclassifiable . . . unlike any novel I can think of."
--David Haglund, The New York Times Book Review

"Brutally honest and stylistically inventive, cerebral, and sexy."
--San Francisco Chronicle

By turns loved and reviled upon its U.S. publication, Sheila Heti's "breakthrough novel" (Chris Kraus, Los Angeles Review of Books) is an unabashedly honest and hilarious tour through the unknowable pieces of one woman's heart and mind. Part literary novel, part self-help manual, and part vivid exploration of the artistic and sexual impulse, How Should a Person Be? earned Heti comparisons to Henry Miller, Joan Didion, Mary McCarthy, and Flaubert, while shocking and exciting readers with its raw, urgent depiction of female friendship and of the shape of our lives now. Irreverent, brilliant, and completely original, Heti challenges, questions, frustrates, and entertains in equal measure. With urgency and candor she asks: What is the most noble way to love? What kind of person should you be?

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 125003244X
• ISBN13: 9781250032447
• Release Date: June 2013
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Motherhood by Sheila Heti was better in my opinion

This book started off quite interesting and I was enjoying it. However, it got to a point where it mostly made little sense to me and the characters were all pretty insufferable. The writing was way too inconsistent for my liking, some parts were written well and they were engaging, others were just pointless. I wouldn’t recommend this book, but someone else might enjoy this writing style. It was pretty quick to get through.