More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say)

Welteroth’s inspiring debut follows her personal and professional trajectories as she unpacks her ascent to becoming editor-and-chief of Teen Vogue in 2017 and details her experience as a black woman in media. From humble beginnings as a “brown girl boss” running a makeshift hair salon out of her Newark, Calif., cul-de-sac home, Welteroth built an illustrious editorial career as she worked her way up through increasingly substantial roles at Ebony and Glamour magazines. She tackles intimate details of her past—family skeletons (such as years of dealing with her father’s drinking and depression), heartbreaks, and solidifying her sense of identity—with an equal mix of personal vignettes and existential musings. Welteroth’s many revelations of romantic missteps, including a relationship with a Wall Street banker that ends calamitously after she receives an email about his philandering, and career pitfalls and triumphs, as when she is recruited from Glamour to Teen Vogue, are delivered in a conversational voice: “I was beginning to carve out space for conversations about identity and race at the magazine... and the intersection between fashion, culture, and later, politics.” Explaining her many experiences being “othered,” by coworkers at largely white Condé Nast magazines and just generally out in the world, Welteroth offers a narrative of empowerment to any reader who has had similar experiences. This affecting tale of claiming one’s space and refuting biases will encourage readers to believe in their own worth and demonstrates Welteroth’s mantra of “First. Only. Different.” [em](June) [/em]