Choose Your Own Disaster

May 15, 2018

Part memoir, part personality quiz, this book recounts many of the poor decisions arts and culture writer (the Guardian, Marie Claire, Vice, The New Yorker) and YA author (And We're Off) Schwartz made during her 20s in a quirky, "choose your own adventure" style format. Her experiences are relatable, especially because she uses second-person singular to put readers in her shoes. She writes candidly about the disordered eating habits and mediocre men that dotted the landscape of her young adulthood with humor and unflinching honesty. She tells the real story of setting up the Twitter account @GuyInYourMFA while studying at Brown University, and how it led to a Tinder date in London with the same type of guy the Twitter account parodies--he recognized her as the creator. VERDICT Equal parts amusing and cringe-worthy, these stories will have millennial readers relating and older ones nodding, "Yes. I've made similar mistakes."--Erin Shea, Ferguson Lib., CT

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