Self Care

Not a debut novel or published in 2023 or a possible comp, I read Leigh Stein's Self Care because I follow her Attention Economy newsletter (so far following very little of her advice, probably to my loss!), which I was connected to by the building your platform course that got me started on a website, etc., in the first place.

That's a sentence my editing brain wants to split up, but it fits the state of this book. Everyone running, running, running, or posting, posting, posting, trying to capture a moment or an opportunity and always Trying to Stay Relevant.

The book is sharp and funny and was a smooth, quick read. Emotionally, it made me relieved to be as old as I am. Not that no one my age is obsessed with social media or that all Millennials are, but I can at least fall back on the excuse of being a Gen X slacker.

None of the characters were exactly likeable, although Maren seemed to be the one most capable of growth. Khadijah had her moments and built up some sympathy but didn't really get enough air time to make her a co-protagonist. Devin was just awful. Her character reminded me of the decidedly non-protagonist Alix in Kiley Reid's Such a Fun Age, another book that skewers the shallowness of social media "image-seekers" (among other things) and left me grateful not to be a part of that world.

Self Care is told in first person, rotating between Maren and Devin, co-founders of a wellness start-up, and Khadijah, who seems to do a lot of the actual work. Maren gets the most page count, rightly so. She is the obvious protagonist. Too much more of Devin would have been intolerable. I'm on the fence about Khadijah, especially after her decision at the end. She does provide an outside perspective on the other two, who are rather blinkered in their views of themselves and each other, but the way her personal dilemma was built up, I expected it to have more emotional heft that it ended up having. I don't blame her for looking out for herself, but I also hope she gets away from Devin sooner than later!

The author's newest book is poetry written during the pandemic and is on my library list.*

*even though I do like poetry