Helen Fielding made it funny and fictional in Bridget Jones's Diary; Elizabeth Gilbert did it without laughs in Eat, Pray, Love. Now in this mashup of memoir, fiction, self-help and philosophy, Sheila Heti has added a bit of a story, quite a few blow jobs and some cheeky exclamation marks, and finally made it credible * Guardian *
A really amazing metafiction-meets-nonfiction novel * Lena Dunham, star and creator of HBO series 'Girls' *
A beguiling novel from life about creativity and authenticity * Guardian Pick of 2013 *
Funny, bawdy and fiercely original, this is the book everyone's talking about - and for good reason * Easy Living *
A shamelessly funny read that's got all of America talking * Grazia *
Part of a growing movement to explore the messiness, self-consciousness and doubt of young women who have been told the world offers them unprecedented opportunity, and who are discovering just what that means -- Kira Cochrane * G2 *
It will be one of the most talked-about books of 2013 * Irish Tatler, 2013 Hot List *
Original...hilarious... Part confessional, part play, part novel, and more-it's one wild ride...Think HBO'S Girls in book form * Marie Claire *
Utterly beguiling: blunt, charming, funny, and smart. Heti subtly weaves together ideas about sex, femininity and artistic ambition. Reading this genre-defying book was pure pleasure * David Shields, author of Reality Hunger *
Heti is taking a hard look at what makes life meaningful and how one doesn't end up loveless and lost. It is book peopled by twentysomethings but works easily as a manual for anyone who happens to have run into a spiritual wall * The Paris Review *
Sheila Heti's vaguely autobiographical new novel might make her the Joan Didion of the Girls generation * Salon *
It's a bawdy, idiosyncratic novel about art, sex, Toronto, female friendship and the endless quest to learn how to live. The title makes me quake with envy. All good books should be called just that... * Chad Harbach, author of The Art of Fielding *
What's compelling about the book is certainly its raw interrogation of the process of creating both a work of art and an artist's personality * Telegraph *
How Should a Person Be? is a question to be revisited by the author herself, or another writer, or many other writers - but it's also the question novels were invented to respond to... Sheila makes it ugly to clear a space: for novels to be less fictional, for women to dream of being geniuses, for a way of being 'honest and transparent and give away nothing' -- Joanna Briggs * London Review of Books *
Genuinely laugh out loud * Daily Mail *
Utterly now -- Claire Allfree * Metro *
A sharp and unsentimental chronicle of what it is like to be a 20-something now...Heti's mordant take on modernity encourages introspection. It is easy to see why a book on the anxiety of celebrity has turned the author into one herself * Economist *
Joyously self-conscious...profoundly ironic...or, perhaps more accurately, it is a production profoundly concerned with how to live authentically in a world saturated by irony -- Olivia Laing * New Statesman *
She's at her best when she turns outwards to faux-innocent criticisms of the creative and slightly self-regarding circles she moves in... Read this for the jolt between reality and fiction and as an attempt at mapping the complicated emotional terrain best friendships can be * Emerald Street *
Ambitious, assured and ruthlessly controlled...exhilarating -- Richard Beck * Prospect *
Witty, unusual, raw...a powerful read...a classic in the making. Its montage of thoughts and emotions, written in the fearlessly true voice of its author, lend the book an unmistakable honesty and make it a truly original memoir as well as a great novel in its own right * Stylist *
An unconventional blur of fact and fiction, How Should a Person Be? is an engaging cocktail of memoir, novel and self-help guide * Grazia *
A candid collection of taped interviews and emails, random notes and daring exposition...fascinating -- Sinead Gleeson * Irish Times *
Terribly compelling -- Hollie Williams * Independent on Sunday *
Occasionally magical...this is an undeniably strange and unique book -- Doug Johnstone * Scotsman *
Genuinely provocative, funny and original -- Hannah Rosefield * Literary Review *
A serious work about authenticity, how to lead a moral life and accept one's own ugliness -- Richard Godwin * Evening Standard *
An exuberantly productive mess, filtered and reorganised after the fact...rather than working within a familiar structure, Heti has gone out to look for things that interest her and put a fence around whatever she finds -- Lidija Haas * Times Literary Supplement *
We may suspect this is barely fictionalised autobiography and we may well be right, but it's very witty barely fictionalised biography -- Michael Conaghan * Belfast Telegraph *
A sharp, witty exploration of relationships, art and celebrity culture -- Natasha Lehrer * Jewish Chronicle *
