How Should a Person Be?

Name: How Should a Person Be?
Brand: Tantor Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Sheila Heti
ISBN: 9781515980674

Author: Sheila Heti

Narrator: Allyson Ryan

Unabridged: 5 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/26/2016

Categories: Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Reeling from a failed marriage, Sheila, a twenty-something playwright, finds herself unsure of how to live and create. When Margaux, a talented painter and free spirit, and Israel, a sexy and depraved artist, enter her life, Sheila hopes that through close—sometimes too close—observation of her new friend, her new lover, and herself, she might regain her footing in art and life.

Using transcribed conversations, real emails, plus heavy doses of fiction, the brilliant and always innovative Sheila Heti crafts a work that is part literary novel, part self-help manual, and part bawdy confessional. It's a totally shameless and dynamic exploration into the way we live now, which breathes fresh wisdom into the eternal questions: What is the sincerest way to love? What kind of person should you be?

About Sheila Heti

Sheila Heti is the author of several books, including the critically acclaimed How Should a Person Be? and the New York Times bestseller Women in Clothes (edited with Heidi Julavits and Leanne Shapton). She is the former interviews editor at the Believer magazine, and has been published in the New Yorker, McSweeney's, the Paris Review, n+1, the London Review of Books, and other publications. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages. She lives in Toronto.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Tara on September 12, 2012

Being a woman of Heti's generation currently living in Toronto, this book embarrasses me. Heti thinks she is truly having a revelation about living by discovering that her life might at times be 'ugly', so much so that she feels the need to share it with everyone in a book called 'How should a perso......more

Goodreads review by Amy on January 13, 2013

Spoiler alert: If your protagonist comes to a major life realization while sticking her nose in a guy's hairy ass, I'm probably not your target audience.......more

Goodreads review by Jenny on October 22, 2012

I wanted to really like this, because people have been talking about how "experimental" and "feminist" this novel is. Margaret Atwood wrote a blurb for it, and she's my fave author of all time. However, (and I suppose that this is a testament to Heti's writing, hence a couple of stars): I know this......more

Goodreads review by Roxane on June 30, 2012

This was a very interesting books. There are countless brilliant lines that delighted me to no end. I was mostly struck by how damn funny this book was in really smart, subtle ways. I knew I was loving this book when I kept catching myself laughing out loud. There are parts of the book that baffled......more

Goodreads review by Baba on April 30, 2023

Women's Prize for Fiction 2013 longlisted - this read is about the trials, tribulations and racy confessions of a young woman playwright, recently (traumatically) divorced, but newly befriended by Margaux (free spirited artist) and Sheila (hew new lover) trying to create a piece of work inspired by......more