I'm not always in the mood for an essay collection, but I am always in the mood for a TMI and that's exactly what Alyssa Shelasky has done here (in an amazing way).

A great memoir that makes you laugh, think, sad, and curious. Really enjoyed the writing style and the stories.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. I am such a fan of Sex Diaries so this was a joy to read. I was hoping for more context and setting within each story and to get to know Alyssa more.

I am always a fan of personal essays and enjoyed Shelasky's collection. I admire how she is not afraid to open up about her intimate and highly personal experiences to add humor to the messiness of everyday life and most importantly make her readers feel seen. Kudos to Shelasky for her vulnerable and eye-opening writing.

I enjoyed this. I’ve always loved intimate, honest stories and I felt like that’s what was produced here. Alyssa was able to grasp her personal life in such a way that felt relatable.

I had high hopes for this book, and about half of it met. It wasn’t laugh out loud funny as promised, but had some interesting takes on broken engagements, infertility and rejection.

First and foremost I want to be Alyssa's friend mostly cause I just resonate with her and her story so much. Before this book I knew nothing about Alyssa but by the end I truly felt like we've been friends for years. No topic is off limit and Alyssas honesty, humor, and faults just make you truly care for her and what she's been through and how she got to where she is now. As someone who feels like her life isn't fitting what's expected I resonated so much with all of Alyssas stories. I cried, I laughed, I wanted to travel the world. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Thanks to St Martins and NetGalley for the ARC for my honest review.

I want to live Alyssa Shelasky's life, but reading this memoir is the next best thing. Her writing is funny, conversational, and real. Each essay starts with a bang and weaves together themes of family, love, and being true to yourself. Shelasky has a knack for taking feelings that are hard to describe, and putting them into words. What I took away from her essays, overall, is that when you're on the right track in life, the universe will send you Liam Neeson.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this memoir. Alyssa Shelatsky upbeat book is honest, funny and heartwarming. As you follow her from a broken engagment to the happy ending you will be relating to her and cheering for her. Her voice is relatable. Now we just have to wait for Sex Diaries on TV!

I will have to say that I was unsure what I was getting into when this book started, but as the book progressed I felt much more reassured. The stories told we’re a bit outlandish, but as the author aged I could relate to them. I’m also very glad that she told the story of having a child in her own with no partner. Those stories are rare and need to be told.

I received a free e-ARC for my honest review, from Netgalley

This book was a real look into the life of a "real life Carrie Bradshaw-type" (although she hates the comparison). Love her or hate her, Alyssa is honest and "too personal" about the details of her life story.- a life thats pretty diametrically opposed to my own. I wouldnt say i relate to Alyssa as a girlfriend... but maybe more as an aunt who really lived it up 20-30 years ago and has STORIES. Alyssa spent time as a real deal glitterati in NYC and has the battle scars to prove it, and the attitude of those types of characters. She isnt a humble sweet girl from the suburbs making it big, and thats compelling.

I was lead to believe this is a book of essays, and its not really, in my opinion. Its more of a memior just told in micro essays-lite. It's a good beach read, but over all not my cup of tea.

This Might Be Too Personal is a collection of essays by Alyssa Shelasky - "Sex Diares" columnist for New York Magazine.

The description of the book makes it sound like this will be salacious, dramatic, gossipy, and confessional but in reality I found it to be just another book of essays. I was expecting it to *go there* more but found it to be pretty mild and not particularly memorable. While I enjoyed the writing, and the essays ultimately culminated in a satisfying conclusion, I didn't find myself very engaged. I am not super familiar with Alyssa's work which likely contributes to that.

Overall, I think there are some great nuggets here, especially around motherhood as a single mother. I would recommend this book, but I would frame it differently than the description.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This Might Be Too Personal is out now!

Alyssa Shelasky isn’t afraid of getting personal. As a writer, she has written about love and sex for decades. She was a real-life Carrie Bradshaw before Sarah Jessica Parker brought the character to life on the screen. She has met celebrities, knows all kinds of stories that she can’t tell in public, and has had her heart broken all over the world.

And eventually she found the thing that could help heal her.

Alyssa grew up in a loving Jewish family in Massachusetts and started to make a name for herself as a freelance writer in New York. She was engaged three times, once to a celebrity chef, but has never been married. She’s pitched dozens of television shows and tried to get a job in writers’ rooms, but she was never quite right for the job. She embraced her freedom, her independence, her self-expression. And then she found herself alone and unhappy and had to ask herself the hard question. What did she really want from her life?

The answer came to her. She wanted motherhood.

She wasn’t young. She wasn’t in a relationship. She had health issues that complicated the process. But she wanted to have a baby, on her own. And when she told her family, her parents and her sister cheered her on. Alyssa found a great fertility doctor. She chose a sperm donor. She breathed deep and crossed her fingers and then she felt like everything was right. And she got pregnant with her daughter.

And while this happens about halfway through the book, it feels like it’s the beginning for Alyssa’s truest love story.

This Might Be Too Personal is a shatteringly honest book of love and heartbreak, of questions about relationships and answers filled with self-awareness and emotional intelligence. There’s the story of her running away from the wedding of her ex-fiance’s best friend, the night after she broke his heart. She had run for blocks, abandoning her shoes, but desperately trying to get to her parents’ home while running into Ethan Hawke. There’s the story of her relationship with the Top Chef competitor that dissolved when he spent too much time traveling and flirting with models. There’s the story of her interviewing Sarah Jessica Parker, and getting a genuine hug from the actor when Alyssa told her she was pregnant.

But while all the name-dropping and world-traveling is interesting, the heart of this book is her pregnancy and her relationship with her daughter, and then adding her partner Sam, and then their adding a son. It’s her devotion to this family that shimmers from the page and makes this not just a fun beach read but an inspiring story of genuine love and acceptance that beats out any self-help book on the shelf.

Don’t get me wrong—I am all in for the celebrity gossip and would have been happy had then been more. But unfortunately for that part of my brain, Alyssa is too classy to publish much of that. And I wasn’t expecting her story to take a turn for the sentimental. But it does, and by then, I was in too deep to leave. I genuinely liked Alyssa and was rooting for her, and I wanted her to find the love and joy she was searching for. And because she did find so much heart-filling love, she’s able to share it with us readers, and we can close the book with fuller hearts and hope for a better future and the idea of a life with ease. This is a genuinely lovely book, and I feel like Alyssa has lifted me up through my time reading it.

Egalleys for This Might Be Too Personal were provided by St. Martin’s Griffin through NetGalley, with many thanks.

The memoir of a woman who claims to be "the real Carrie Bradshaw" of Sex in the City, this book chronicles the life a woman who goes from being a complete mess to a normal mom. The beginning of this memoir is interesting and fresh, as the author confesses to all kinds of unwise behavior. Then, she decided to become a single mother through artificial insemination by an anonymous donor. Love strikes when she leasts expects, and she becomes part of a relatively normal couple. At this point, the book is not quite as interesting. The character grows, sure, but she's just not as much fun as she was when we first meet her.

This Might Be Too Personal wasn't really the book it's advertised as. I didn't vibe with it or any of the so-called hilarious stories.

This sounded like a fun collection of essays and reflections on a life of being in the world of celebrity, sex journalism, and more from a woman who's been called the "real life Carrie Bradshaw." But I didn't really vibe with it. Her humor wasn't my style (basically - I didn't find these essays very funny?), and I feel like some of the humor comes from these one-off, punchy lines like "I had an hour after interviewing Sarah Jessica Parker to make it to my abortion" or "My mom asked if I brought a vibrator to my IUI appointment." That's probably a product of her journalism background, where she has to hook the reader in with an attention-grabber, but I don't think it works as well in this format.

I also felt like I was missing some key background on who she is. She either comes into the collection presuming that you know her, or you don't really need to know much more than the fact that she's a journalist who writes about lifestyle and sex topics. But I lacked a connection to her from the very beginning, feeling like I needed to get to know her first before diving into these antics.

Finally, I think this essay collection would have been better described as a woman's journey into being a single mother by choice, tackling dating while being pregnant and raising a daughter on her own. That's really what the majority of these essays are about, at least the ones that are the most interesting to read.

One more thing that's a bit of a nit, but she mentions that she got the job writing the Sex Diaries column because the higher-ups at The Cut heard that she was becoming a single mother by choice and that she was desperate for a job, so they offered it to her. The privilege inherent in this really bothers me - I know that it's not her fault, per se, but it's emblematic of what's wrong with industries like this. Shelasky acknowledges that she wasn't at the forefront of sex culture, as a primarily heterosexual, single-partnered-at-a-time, not-into-kinks kind of person. I know Shelasky did a good job as the writer of this column, but I would have also loved to see a woman of color, non-cishet person who is typically underrepresented when talking about sex manage a column like this.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio for the ARC via Netgalley.

I loved everything about this memoir! 5 stars! I was intrigued by this book's cover and was given the wonderful surprise of reading the story of a woman who made me laugh, inspired me and got me right in the feels. I immediately want more from Alyssa Shelasky!

4 Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me this arc in exchange for an honest review

Alyssa Shelasky has often been compared to Carrie Bradshaw, and after reading this I completely understand why. Shelasky has such a fun storytelling voice that is so personal, you feel as though she is right next to you telling these stories. This collection of essays was exciting, funny, sad, and heartwarming all at the same time. Alyssa felt like the cool older sister I never had. I enjoyed this so much and I can’t wait to read more from Alyssa Shelasky!

A honest open memoir at times hilarious at times emotional.The author shares her romances from the opening scene when she breaks off her engagement to a wonderful guy just not for her.She shares her dating stories her life experiences in a wonderful breezy style.Really enjoyed her voice .#netgalley #st.Martins

This Might Be Too Personal is a hilarious and vulnerable memoir (collection of essays?) that I really enjoyed. When you’re reading it, it’s like you’re having a conversation with a girlfriend who always has the best stories and doesn’t hold back. Shelasky has worked as a writer for the past twenty odd years in magazines, newspapers, and TV, and I loved her references of cultural touchstones. At first I was a little put off by the tone of the book. It seemed a little immature and braggy, but I was immediately entertained and persisted. Shelasky starts off in her twenties and goes into her present-day life in her forties. I really enjoyed how she grew up in the memoir/essays and how her life and what she wanted evolved. I especially loved the parts about her time and friendships in Los Angeles, childbirth, and motherhood. I really appreciated how she views her children and family and friends. She has such an open and welcoming view with low stakes. It makes me wonder how I can incorporate that same view as a mother of two similarly aged children. It’s clear how much she enjoys and embraces her children and family. I listened to the audiobook, which was narrated by the author. It gave the book such great personality and I loved her delivery and parts where she became choked up.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press / Macmillan Audio for providing this ebook / audiobook ARC. All thoughts are my own.