About This Book
Michelle Buteau has built a career on telling the truth in the funniest way possible, and this essay collection is where that instinct runs completely unchecked. Ranging across dating disasters, body image, biracial identity, fertility struggles, and the strange climb toward something resembling adult competence, these pieces follow Buteau through the messy, frequently humiliating business of becoming herself. There's real stakes underneath the laughs — the IVF chapters especially carry a weight that sneaks up on you — but the book never lets pain crowd out the wit that makes Buteau such a distinct voice.
What sets the collection apart is how fully her stand-up sensibility translates to the page without becoming a transcription of it. The prose has rhythm and timing; she knows exactly when to drop a gut-punch observation and when to let a story breathe. Each essay works as a standalone piece while building a cumulative portrait of a woman who refused to shrink herself to fit expectations that were never designed with her in mind. Readers who love the personal-essay form will find Buteau pushing at its edges with something more irreverent and more honest than the genre usually allows.