You're Embarrassing Yourself

Praise

“With cackle-worthy humor and absolute ease, Desiree Akhavan shares her deeply honest stories of culture and identity, modern sexuality, and what it is to be an artist.”—Lena Dunham, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl

“From Tina Fey’s Bossypants to Samantha Irby’s We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, there is a rich modern American tradition of female essay-style narrative nonfiction. Their success—and their enjoyability—largely depends on the voice. . . . Akhavan is that rare thing: both painfully honest and likable.”—The Guardian
 
“Akhavan gets real. Like, really real. So real that if I’d experienced some of the stuff she speaks on in this memoir, I’d take it to my grave real.”—Book Riot

“Akhavan is one of the most audacious and important filmmakers working today. . . . She’s no stranger to mining her life for tragicomic gold, which she does aplenty in her memoir-in-essays.”—Electric Lit

“Desiree Akhavan’s memoir is a hilariously raw, relatable, and—dare I even say—sexy recounting of an awkward girl’s journey to finding her way as an adult, and ultimately, an artist. In other words—a perfect book.”—Jessi Klein, New York Times bestselling author of I’ll Show Myself Out

“Addictively honest, and cool without leaving anyone out, this book offers a hand and a laugh to readers who have gone through some of the same things that Desiree Akhavan did—which, let’s be honest, is most of us.”—Casey Wilson, New York Times-bestselling author of The Wreckage of My Presence

“An utterly charming, hilarious coming-of-art story, full to the brim with cringe and heart.”—Melissa Febos, national bestselling-author of Body Work and Girlhood

“Full of heart, thrumming with profundity, and laugh out loud hilarious, You’re Embarrassing Yourself marks Desiree Akhavan as a blazing literary talent. Come for the gossip and cringe; stay for the moving portraits of familial loyalty, queerness, art making, and the many ways we find ourselves home.”—T. Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls

“A moving account of self-acceptance that gives us each permission to take it all a little less seriously.”—Anna Sale, host of the podcast Death, Sex & Money and author of Let’s Talk About Hard Things              

“[A] funny and incisive debut memoir-in-essays. . . . [Akhavan charts] an endearingly crooked path to maturity.”—Publishers Weekly

“Equal parts a growing-up survival guide and a confessional about never having grown up at all, this title is sure to captivate readers looking for a fresh and authentic voice.”—Booklist

“A readably funny and candid memoir.”—Kirkus Reviews