3.5 

Adult Braces

By Lindy West
Adult Braces by Lindy West digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

In
New York Times bestselling author Lindy West’s ambitious memoir, she brings readers along on an uproarious cross-country road trip as she unpacks her last few tumultuous years, rediscovers herself, and reinvents her marriage in the process.
 
Through Shrill—the book and then the Hulu series—Lindy West became an inspiration. To this day she is stopped on the street and hailed as a beacon of empowerment by women who felt badly for not conforming to a narrow set of societal norms—thin, straight, compliant. But behind the scenes, Lindy never felt like she was the self-actualized woman fans made her out to be. When she found herself in the throes of a deep depression, with her marriage and sense of self-worth hanging in the balance, she knew she needed to make a change.  
 
In Adult Braces, Lindy shares the story of her rock bottom, and of the journey she took to claw her way out of it. With her trademark candor and sense of humor, she examines her post-Shrill emotional implosion, her shifting feelings about traditional marriage, and her search for her long-lost self. She also tracks the highs and lows of her journey, from eye-opening natural wonders and kitschy roadside attractions to lackluster tourist traps and campground epiphanies.
 
The result is an engaging and laugh-out-loud narrative of becoming as Lindy transforms from a passenger into the active navigator of her own life.
 
 

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Adult Braces Reviews

3.5
“I wanted to love this one. I really did. Adult Braces: Driving Myself Sane picks up after Shrill, with a pretty settled version of author Lindy West’s life: career, marriage, and a sense of identity. But then, everything starts to crack apart. What follows is part breakdown and part road trip. The book is candid and genuinely funny. Even when I was frustrated, I kept reading because of West’s writing. The road trip structure helps. It gives the book some forward momentum. There are moments that land hard, especially when she’s talking about grief, disappointment, and realizing the life you chose might not be the one you actually want. But here’s where it lost me a bit. The honesty is real, but it can also feel… stuck. Like we’re looping through the same thoughts over and over again without any new insight. The sections on marriage, power dynamics, and polyamory are interesting, but they sometimes read more like real-time processing than reflection. Which is honest, yes. But also a little exhausting. Still, I respect it. Adult Braces is not a tidy memoir. It’s not trying to be inspiring in the way people might want from someone who became an accidental spokesperson for empowerment. It’s messy. It’s self-involved at times. And it drags in places. But it’s also emotionally brave, very readable, and probably going to spark a lot of conversation. Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for an advanced reader's copy; all opinions expressed in this review are my own.”

About Lindy West

Lindy West is the author of three books: the New York Times bestselling memoir Shrill as well as the essay collections The Witches Are Coming and Shit, Actually. Lindy is a former contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and her work has appeared in This American Life, The Guardian, Cosmopolitan, GQ, Vulture, Jezebel, and others. She is the co-host of the comedy podcast Text Me Back and the author of the e-mail newsletter Butt News. Lindy was a writer and executive producer on Shrill, the Hulu comedy adapted from her memoir, and she co-wrote and produced the independent feature film Thin Skin. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula in rural Washington state.

 

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