Self-Sabotage: And Other Ways I’ve Spent My Time

Actor and YA novelist Self (A Very, Very Bad Thing) delivers a rollicking adult debut that charts his passage from shame to self-acceptance. “Grab a funnel cake, but don’t get too comfortable,” Self warns readers, before taking them on “a word-based roller coaster through the chaos that is the unfortunate theme park of my mental health.” He mixes wry essays about growing up bipolar and gay in the small town of Rome, Ga., with missives about his stints as an actor, a sex worker, and a comedian, and eventually, his marriage to his husband, Augie. Dotting the narrative are playful asides (he threads lists of “Ten Reasons Not to Sabotage Your Life” throughout, but “One Hundred Reasons to Sabotage My Life” threatens to outweigh them), and though Self’s ruthless honesty and self-deprecation occasionally shade into oversharing, his winning voice shines through. His conclusion—that therapy helped him deposit his myriad insecurities “into the bed of my mental pickup truck: a beat-up, gas-guzzling hunk of rusted metal filled to the sky with my endless collection of tedious, time-wasting triggers”—may not be revolutionary, but it feels genuine. This delightfully over-the-top self-portrait brims with pleasures. Agent: Alex Kane, WME. (Mar.)