Miigweetch NetGalley and Atria/One Signal Publishers for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

A collection of short essays on a variety of topics, including social media, motherhood, processing grief, and growing up. I’d not heard of Nora McInerny prior to reading this book but I plan to check out more of her work; she’s a hoot.

I like this format - it makes the book easy to pick up and put down, ideal for a flight, watch duty, or other long stretch of time with intermittent interruptions one might find themselves needing to fill. Not all the topics were interesting to me, but the majority were and I genuinely laughed more than once. Recommend for fun, chatty (maybe even catty wink wink!) book clubs that are more about drinking wine and enjoying charcuterie than deep-dive literary analysis.

Bad Vibes Only was a book of short essays about various topics from social media, motherhood, processing grief and growing up. I had never heard of Nora McInerny before reading this, but I can understand why people enjoy her writing! It’s very honest and real and I found the essays to be extremely relatable. I especially loved the insight on social media. I look forward to reading more from this author!

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: October 11, 2022

Life isn’t sustainable with “good vibes only” and I’m definitely down with the vibes in this collection of essays. I’ve heard of McInerny before but this is my first time reading her work—excuse me while I deep dive into past publications and podcast episodes!

A number of these essays were freakishly relatable (maybe it’s partly because I share a birthday with the author? Anxiety-fueled Capricorns, rise! Or maybe it’s because we grew up at a time when many elder-millennials were unknowingly experiencing the same formative events). Much of this book revolves around generational differences and parenting (and the expectations of parenting) in today’s world. I highly recommend this to parents but is relatable to anyone who knows kids or was a kid.

This will make you want to put your screen down to call an old friend or relative and catch up…only to realize you have to pick your screen back up to do so.

I hadn't heard of McInerny before but this book of essays about motherhood, family, growing up in the Midwest, and work were interesting and relevant to me. I was entertained by the essay about her crazy boss in New York. I was inspired to reconnect without technology by the essay about her uncle who is a priest. They were all good, but every parent needs to read the last few paragraphs of the last essay to reevaluate the pressure that we put on our kids.

Finally! Someone who celebrates that life isn't all that we dreamed of, that we DON"T have to make lemonade out of lemons, and that it's OKAY to acknowledge and sit with life's shortcomings. Nora McInerny pulls no punches with her essays on life, relationships, aging, love, body image, and more in her latest release Bad Vibes Only. To say I feel seen is an understatement, and for all of the dry humor McInerny pours into each essay I found myself making note of and writing down some incredibly poignant revelations. For example, "Every choice I made eliminated other versions of myself." She nailed my ever-present existential crisis in one sentence. Yes, we can make choices that lead our lives in positive directions and we celebrate the good we have despite all that we may have lost out on, but McInerny openly shares her "grief" over realizing that each choice brought her to where she is today, both good and bad, and accepting that fact in order to move on. We can celebrate the blessings while also mourning the losses, whatever they may look like. I enjoyed her wit, her candidness, her stream-of-consciousness, and the deep insights she provides throughout each essay. If we met IRL, I think we'd be friends. What I wouldn't give to have a cup of coffee with this woman. Is it possible to find a friend soulmate in a book???

**Thank you, NetGalley, and publishers for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.**

I was intrigued by the title of this book, and I didn’t know much more about the book or the author. I soon realized that I had seen Nora’s TedTalk about moving forward with grief (if you haven’t seen it, go watch it right now). I was then looking forward to reading her newest book.

While I didn’t relate to every one her essays, I enjoyed reading them and hearing about Nora’s experiences. Nora says that a life worth living is about more than just “good vibes.” In every essay, she is real and authentic and even discusses the heavier topic of grief while still making the reader laugh and relate to her everyday antics, such as not understanding friendships as an adult.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC.

Bad Vibes Only: (and Other Things I Bring to the Table) by Nora McInerny is a highly recommended collection of nineteen essays.

In the "Before We Begin" opening where McInerny discusses people saying everything is "fine" in response to the question, "how are you?" no matter how things really are, she immediately won my heart as a co-worker and I repeatedly would say, "It's fine, everything is fine" to each other in stressed out voices while running to handle one crisis after another. These essays excel in the truisms that reside within them and many people will be able to relate to most of the essays on some level.

The essays are all honest and reflect on events that have happened in her life, some of them are weighty, and this is where their strength lies. Subjects cover include in part: grief and loss, parenting, self-improvement, aging, makeup, teenage years, several childhood experiences, mental health, social media, and more. All of the essays are firmly experiences from her life, which made them skew a bit on the younger side for me, but they will likely resonate much more with people, especially mothers, in their thirties to early forties.

The writing is very good and the topics are interesting. McInerny uses humor and vulnerability to share the empathetic insights into her life. As with any collection of essays, not all of them will appeal to everyone but most readers will find something to enjoy in this collection. And the cover is very appealing.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Atria/One Signal via NetGalley.
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble, Google Books, Edelweiss, and Amazon.

This got me out of a massive slump! These essays were gripping, funny, and felt so real. I don’t often read books in this format, but I loved it.

This book was relatable on many levels. Although I haven’t lost a spouse, I completely relate to being anxious about your children & whether you’re messing them up. I relate to the essays about finding yourself & who you want to be when you grow up, so to speak. I thought the writing was well done & flowed smoothly. Highly recommend.

Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for advanced copy in exchange for my honest review

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for an ARC of Bad Vibes Only.

I LOVED this book and really found myself relating to the author. To me, it's what "Bittersweet" by Susan Cain wanted to be- but more approachable, more humorous, and more REAL.

This book really made me feel less alone in "figuring it all out" and having to put effort toward my own personal happiness.

As heralded by the cover, there's a little bit of acid in all of these essays. I was not familiar with McInerny but I feel like know her now. Who among us hasn't done something and been surprised when no one noticed? And who doesn't have different approaches to certain parts of life than a spouse? These are written in a very conversational tone and while some are a bit cringe-y, others are entirely relatable. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. A good collection.

I think I finished every single essay and said, "Man, I can relate." I am not a widow, but I am an anxious mother, a homebody, someone who doesn't care to share her children all over the internet anymore, incompetent at math, and so much more. I laughed, I teared up, I shook my head YES vehemently so many times. I adored the wit, the honesty, and the vulnerability Nora shares in this book, and I'd highly recommend it to friends and family.

Loved this one, I even laughed out loud in a few spots! I had never heard of this author, since then I’ve learned she has a podcast and other books. I wish I had listened to the audio version, I think it would have made a good book even better.

I really get McInerny's whole vibe, and I've listened to a lot of episodes of her podcast, so I was familiar with her sense of humor and general way of telling stories, so I really liked this. It was my first book of hers I've read, but I've been meaning to read her others for quite some times now, so I hope to get to them soon. She is a really good writer with a frank, honest style that pulls humor out of even the most uncomfortable or difficult situations of life. I don't laugh often when reading, but I laughed out loud at a couple of points throughout the book - her writing is so expressive and the way she explains a situation, you can just PICTURE it. It was very funny at times. The whole memoir in essays thing is sort of annoying to me, it makes things non linear and sort of gives an excuse not to make a story, and it's really popular these days, but I wasn't as annoyed with it in this book as I've been with some others. Also, I know that McInerny has written other memoirs that (I think) are the more traditional, formal structure, so I give her a little pass on this one. Anyway, I liked it a lot.

McInerny is a bit of a curmudgeon, but her voice is humorous enough to skate past the danger of the "whining on the yacht" syndrome that can sometimes happen with books shelved over near self-help. Even if the author is side-eyeing the whole self-help industry.

Sometimes I could relate, other times we were from different planets, which is a plus. I like other points of view, even when I don't agree. Her love-hate thing with social media, for instance, made me shrug the way I shrug when someone goes on about their passion for shoes. I just don't feel the vibe, bad or good.

Who is the reader for these? Maybe the middle aged (I'm too old by a generation) mom? Really, anyone who wants to dip into a book of essays, to see what one woman thinks.

If the phrase “Good Vibes Only” and that mentality makes you want to throw up, this book might be for you. There were some things I really liked about this book and some things I was more lukewarm about. I did really enjoy McInerny’s sense of humor. There were times I was honestly cackling while reading this. She also had a lot of good insight and shared it without sounding too much like a self help book. She was very honest and laid it all out there, the good, bad and ugly. I related to a lot of what she said. There were a few chapters I found myself skimming because they just weren’t grabbing me and there were also some I really liked. I do think parents will get more out of this than childfree people because of the motherhood stories. Which isn’t a bad thing and there were certainly some funny moments, but as a childfree person, I wasn’t the target audience for those chapters. Overall, it was an interesting and funny collection of essays.


Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced digital reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much for this ARC! I am a big fan of Nora's and I must say that this felt like just what I needed to read.

An essay collection that is self aware, funny, but emotional...? I'm in! I loved Holy Envy so much that I read it twice and will probably read it again.

Thank you for this ARC NetGalley!

A witty, funny and interesting book. The author pokes fun at herself and her family to show how to live a life you can be satisfied with. It is a personal journey of lessons learned and one’s others can learn from.

Entertaining, engaging, and relatable. A recommended purchase for collections where memoirs and essay collections are popular.

I loved Bad Vibes Only far more than I dreamed I would. This thoughtful and emotional (and occasionally irreverent) collection of personal essays is an instant winner. Even after just the first chapter, I knew I would enjoy this book, but it truly has it all. I laughed. I cried. I felt seen and understood.

Nora McInerny has given us something brilliant. I feel as if we are old friends—not because I share her experiences, but because I share her thoughts and feelings. And especially the sentiment of being “the saddest happy person I know (or maybe the happiest sad person I know).”

I feel as if every woman I know needs to find themselves in these pages. Why? Maybe so that we can find deeper levels on which to relate. Or maybe just so we can add a cute book to our bookshelves. It’s funny how I question the way I do things after indulging in so much of Nora’s self reflection.

But at any rate, Bad Vibes Only is absolutely one of my favorites. I know its witty title will be a conversation starter for years to come. So thank you, Nora McInerny, for helping us feel more seen and less alone.