And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo

Former Longreads editor Botton debuts with an introspective collection of essays about the joys and pains of feeling like a misfit. A self-proclaimed “weirdo,” Botton always felt out of place among her peers, until just before her 27th birthday in 1992, when she decided to “explode” her life: “I took the gameboard of my small existence and threw it over,” she writes in her opening essay, “Lost,” “leaving behind a starter marriage... and suburbia.” Now in her mid-50s, Botton recalls in heartfelt and witty prose the pivotal moments that have shaped her. In “Leaving the Land of Make-Believe,” she recounts struggling with identity as she came to grips with being “split in two” by her parents’ divorce. Along her hard-earned path to self-acceptance, she details high school insecurities and bullying a classmate, only to have the tables turned on her (“In what felt like an instant, five girls I’d become close with but had always been somewhat wary of became my arch enemies”). As Botton recounts her mortifying moments, struggles with body image, and countless anxious encounters, readers are likely to find themselves squirming alongside her. The result offers a cathartic look at an imperfect life lived fully. (June)