Sloppy
Or: Doing It All Wrong

Quotes

“Swaggering. . . . Welcome and relatable. . . . Refreshingly irreverent. . . [with] drop-kick sentences. . . . As a writer, she is absolutely, as they used to say, happening.”
—New York Times

“Rax King is my favorite dirtbag genius in lucite heels. Read her shit.”
—Samantha Irby, author of Quietly Hostile

“It is frankly rude to take a book full of such poignant insights and sharp jokes and call it Sloppy, but that's what Rax King did with her tender and charming new essay collection. I hope this book sells one million copies, because the writing deserves it, and also because then Rax can pay back the money she borrowed from me when she was doing all those drugs.”
—Josh Gondelman, comedian and author of Nice Try

“Out of all Rax King’s habits, let’s be so thankful she hasn’t quit writing. She’s plagued with the same follies as the rest of us but has been bestowed a gift by the bored gods and the lush dogs to be able to craft a perfect essay, one that helps us untangle why the hell we’re still like this. It is the kind of book people will imitate because it’s so original and the kind of book that will be fundamental for young writers and women, or people who are both of those things if you can imagine something as wretched as that. I love reading about Rax’s incredible sloppy life.”
—Melissa Lozada-Oliva, author of Candelaria

“Brave. Vulnerable. Hilarious. Rax King’s world is one of bad ideas and brilliant insights that come from following them through.”
—Lola Kirke, author of Wild West Village

“Spry confessional. . . . An entertaining memoir of a train wreck of a life, and of picking one’s way out of the rubble.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“King follows up her cheeky debut Tacky with an essay collection about bad behavior. . . . Written with her characteristic wit, cheek, and sense of gallows humor.”
—The Millions

“Brash, darkly funny. . . . King writes candidly of her suicide attempts and calls sobriety ‘the birthplace of boredom’ (she’s sober now)—but her razor wit ensures the tone never veers into self-pity. Instead, she provides a bracing, brutally honest account of living outside the bounds of respectability.”
—Publishers Weekly

“In her incisive Sloppy, King investigates addiction, relationship dynamics, pop culture and more throughout these . . . no-holds-barred personal essays. . . . Astonishingly self-aware. . . . Sloppy doesn’t end in transformative redemption, nor does it justify the blunders of selfish youth. Instead, King deconstructs the messiness of what it means to be alive, delivering the kind of clarity and crackling insight that can only be achieved through intentional vulnerability and a refusal to romanticize the past. To err is to be alive, and Sloppy illustrates that personal growth is a surprising, ever-evolving journey.”
—BookPage

“Gut-busting. . . . It’s hard to imagine that self-improvement could be this funny.”
—Boston Globe