I thought I would like this book, but I think it triggers too much of my teenage years (*cringe*). I know it is a memoir, but I thought some of the stories were a little self-absorbed and petty. There is a niche for this, though, so I just don't think it was the best for me.

Reading this memoir felt like listening to one of your best friends tell you entertaining stories with a wine glass in hand. Benoit takes the humor and wit that she's known for on Twitter and puts it in longform here. Her voice is accessible, funny, relatable, and vulnerable, and the essays are the kind where you can easily pick up where you left off like no time has passed. A delightful collection!

I struggled with this book because I love Sophia's voice as an author, but I felt like it could have been half as long and twice as effective. I struggled to start it, and then had to push myself to keep reading despite truly enjoying some of the essays. I had a much easier time reading the book when I took it out from the library, as the egalley made it impossible to follow the footnotes. Overall a charming book that could have benefitted from a ruthless cutdown. I'll recommend it to specific people, especially young women in their late teens and early twenties. But not the book for me.

A quick perusal of the table of contents in Sophia Benoit's debut essay collection, Well, This Is Exhausting, provides a sense of what's to come: "Section One, in which I try really hard to be a good kid for my parents, miss out on a normal youth because I was fat, and then date someone who sucks"; "Section Two, in which I try really hard to impress shitty men, discover Skinnygirl pina colada mix, and learn how to do eye makeup"; and "Section Three, in which I get very tired of trying so hard, realize I was wrong about almost everything, and save my boyfriend's life."

These headers provide a loose chronological framework for Benoit's 30 essays, which are as hilarious and biting as their subtitles suggest. Benoit chronicles her early childhood spent as a well-behaved people-pleaser, the many lengths to which she has gone to impress men not worth impressing, and then inches closer to the present day, in which she lives in Los Angeles with her long-time boyfriend and has mostly stopped tying herself in knots to please other people. It's a classic millennial tale, but in Benoit's hands, this story of coming into one's full and honest self feels fresh and new. Perhaps it's her ability to balance self-deprecating humor with a white-hot rage against the cis-het white patriarchy, or to combine razor-sharp jabs at terrible ex-boyfriends with smart and reflective thoughts about what it feels like to live in a woman's body in the 21st century. Whatever the secret may be, Well, This Is Exhausting is exhilarating to read. (And the footnotes are not to be missed--they are somehow even funnier.) --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Discover: A collection of 30 heartfelt and hilarious personal essays documents one woman's journey from people-pleaser to tired, happy, independent self.

Not really for me, I liked the voice and some stories but it was just a little too much sometimes. I also did not know the author before reading this and wish I would’ve read some of her previous work.

Sophia Benoit was unapologetically funny in her collection of essays about life. I connected with some essays more than others. Some of them just seemed to drag on and on with no end in sight.
A lot of the pages had footnotes that added a little humor, but many of them felt necessary. This book def should’ve came with a trigger warning on a few topics, but I appreciated how honest she was.

Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, & Gallery Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Truly relatable, insightful essays that make me feel like Sophia Benoit is an amalgam of me, my friends, and everything I know about surviving your young adult life.

Parts of it were laugh out loud funny, mostly I found it repetitive. I would most likely read her next book with anticipation.

Very funny. Sophia Benoit is a fresh, bold, funny voice that will resonate with millennial women. She is unapologetic, candid, and a witty, talented writer whose memories and cringe moments are relatable and enjoyable. I wasn’t familiar with the author prior to ready this for an interview, but would definitely seek out her future work.

a beautiful collection of essays about life, growth, and handing different family emotions. Telling how she handled the emotional side of her parents divorce and many other emotional situations that arise throughout changes and life struggles.

Thank you to Gallery Books for providing me with a copy of Sophia Benoit’s memoir, Well, This is Exhausting: Essays, in exchange for an honest review.

In Well, This is Exhausting: Essays, comedy writer Sophia Benoit covers a variety of topics, such as body image issues, overcoming the need for male approval, and the societal pressures that women face. Benoit’s writing is frank and honest, often both thought-provoking and humorous.

I found the collection to be a bit uneven, with some chapters, particularly the ones that were numbered lists, to feel like filler material, while other chapters, such as those regarding her young-adult relationships or the idea of perfectionism for women, to be poignant. A majority of the chapters have footnotes, which again, sometimes worked well to add depth, clarity, or humor, but sometimes seemed unnecessary. Just like Benoit, I also read a lot of non-fiction writing akin to Well, This is Exhausting. Knowing the genre well, made me hyper aware of which essays had a fresh perspective and which ones seemed rehashed.

I could relate to her early dating efforts, especially the idea of being a “Chill Girl.” It made me cringe, but to some extent I could see myself at the same age, doing similar things for male attention. I can also see that behavior in many of my female friends. Benoit is more than a decade younger than me, and we dealt with different technology and lingo in our early twenties, however, the actual problems were all too similar. Benoit’s essays made me consider the disparities between men and women, and how the expectations thrust upon women are both unfair and difficult to shake.

Benoit is an interesting voice and I’d definitely read her future works. I would be most interested if she published another essay collection in a decade or two, when she has the perspective of being middle-aged. Not only would I anticipate the personal shift from experiences/passage of time, but also in a world that is rapidly changing, it would be interesting hear her take on society and feminism

When I saw the title of this book, I knew I needed to read it. I love essay collections and especially enjoy how easy they are to take in in small doses, which is how my reading has been so far this summer…⁣

⁣This book is a memoir essay mix, which is shared through a humorous confessional type style of writing mixed with some seriously relevant 21st-century social commentary. ⁣
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I connected with some essays more than others, which is about how it goes with this style of book but this little snippet really sums it up...⁣
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“We all have a story about figuring out who we want to be and how we want to behave and treat other people, and often in other people’s stories we recognize ourselves. We read something and go, “Ahhh yep yep yep. That’s it; that’s what it’s like to be alive sometimes.” -Sophia Benoit, Author⁣

Thank you to Gallery Books for my gifted copy.

3.5 stars, rounded up.

There should probably be some trigger warnings at the beginning of this book, including eating disorders/ mental illness, and sexual assault.
I was not familiar with this author before starting this book, but I found her writing style very engaging. There were many times throughout the book where I was literally laughing out loud! Sophia Benoit is brazen and unabashed in her storytelling. I appreciate that she did not hold back, even when it admittedly did not paint her in the best light.

There are parts to this book that I felt like were maybe trying a bit too hard. And there were essays where the timelines did not seem to make sense and were a bit confusing. Like, I am pretty sure that the same event was recounted twice, but in completely different ways. Kind of odd.

That being said, I do think that the author has great things to say about feminism and body image. She is funny, and I'll probably start following her on twitter for the 3 times a year a remember I have that app.

Well, This is Exhausting did not do it for me. There were some funny parts, but I felt overall it was a little repetitive in that the author was talking about the same issues over and over. I did like her raw honesty, and felt for her when she described her upbringing and childhood (or lack thereof). The footnotes at the end of each chapter also felt a bit unnecessary to me because by the time I had gotten to them, I forgot what half of them were in references to.

The author, Sophia Benoit is a comedian and I feel like if I were at a comedy club, listening to her tell these stories I may have gotten more out of it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. This one was just not for me.

I was not familiar with the author before reading this book. I found her voice engaging, and I especially appreciated "'I'm Difficult.'--Sally Albright (but Really Nora Ephron)" and "Things I Want My Little Sisters to Know ...". But the essays tended to ramble and I found myself skimming. I recommend reading this book over a longer period of time than I did, allowing yourself to digest it bit by bit rather than all at once.

[Thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my opinion.]

First of all, Thank you to Gallery Books and Netgalley for the ARC of Well, This Is Exhausting by Sophia Benoit in exchange for an honest review.

Publishing Date: July 13, 2021.

WARNING this is my first very negative review - I usually just don’t finish books 
I don’t like but for some reason, I could not stop reading this. It was like a car crash I couldn’t look away from.

TBH. The title says it all this book is truly exhausting to read - first of all it is ten times longer than it needed to be.

I usually judge books based on their genre and this was a nonfiction memoir so I am comparing it to books such as Know My Name and Untamed. These types of books I usually feel like I can take away something from the book, but there was truly nothing in this book worth remembering.

The few things I liked about this book were her confidence to write a book and the humor she wove throughout the book, but truly I think she should just stick to Twitter.

I hope I am not offending anyone with this negative review but if I wanted to read a memoir about a white privileged 20-year-old with no substance I could just watch reality TV.

📚Book 32 of 2021: Well, This Is Exhausting by Sophia Benoit

💬Reader’s Digest Version: Sophia Benoit’s book is a collection of essays about her life that will make you laugh until you pee, infuriatingly angry, deeply sad, empowered, a little nostalgic, and everything in between.

🏃🏻‍♀️My Take: I have a lot to say about this book. I felt like I was holding up a mirror to my own struggles I had going through college and high school. When Sophia talks about dimming her own personality to make men feel comfortable, it made me realize how often I used to do that. Especially in college. The need for male approval is something that I would venture to say many women yearn for at some point in their lives.

Through her candid confessional writing style, I was able to look back on some of the things I have done in the past and still sometimes do that are..to put it bluntly…problematic.

As women we are encouraged to be small. To not be emotional. To be “the cool girl.” God, that image got me. The “cool girl” never gets angry. She never gets emotional. She is always affable and ready for whatever shit you want to through her way. She never gets offended by anything. She is a blank canvas for you to project on. Fuck being the cool girl!

Sophia’s honesty in these essays helped me to be more honest too. Ladies, stop making yourself small to make others comfortable. You are capable and worthy of so much more than that.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

🙏🏻Thank you @gallerybooks @simonandschuster and @netgalley for the ARC.
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Let me start off by saying I've heard of Sophia Benoit, but I am not really familiar with her. That being said, is Sophia Benoit in my head?! I loved her humorous voice and relatability. I also was the good girl rule follower in the midwest and an overweight confused child. She's spot on from everything from rom-coms to reality tv. Truly! If you are looking for a little humor look no further than Well This Is Exhausting!

I went into this not knowing anything about the author or having read any of her previous work. I connected to several of her essays but others I really struggled with them dragging and feeling a little over the top. I really appreciate her honesty about many topics and shying away from going against popular opinion. Overall, it was just ok for me.

I really, really wanted to like this book but it was just SO unhealthy.

It’s very clear the author experienced a lot of personal trauma in her life and in an attempt to be some woke feminist is trying to write about it, but it doesn’t come off that way. It’s very clear she still has real issues that she struggles with and should seek counseling for.

This made me uncomfortable and sad and was only about 20% of the way through where I couldn’t take her making excuses for her clearly damaging parents. DNF.