I loved this memoir. Carla Sosenko shares her life experiences as a woman born with Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome and the journey she traveled to love and appreciate her body. This memoir is honest, raw, funny, engaging, and a must read for any woman who has been body shamed for any reason (so…everyone). I will forever recommend this book to family, friends, and strangers.

✨ Thank you NetGalley and The Dial Press for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review ✨

Carla Sosenko wrote a raw and honest memoir about her and life and struggles she’s overcome. I think this novel can help many people understand why we feel the way about it our bodies for whatever reason and how we too can learn to de the good in them. I think Sosenko is honest in her life stories and doesn’t shy away from the good and the bad that each day that we have.

I find it hard to judge memoirs because of the context of them and how people write about themselves, but overall I think many people can find comfort and hope in her story and relate to her in various level.

I received a proof of this book through NetGalley.
I found this book engaging and funny, as a disabled person myself a lot of the stories were relatable. There were some sections that dragged a bit, but not to a degree that I wouldn’t recommend

This is an intimate memoir of a woman who has dealt with a singular congenital condition while still living the life of every woman who tries to fit in, to love herself and to succeed while stumbling over the baggage we all carry.

I am a New Yorker who has always called myself a "woman of a certain size." Even when thin I am rounded and I am a 4x lifetime member of Weight Watchers. Reading Carla Sosenko's chapters about her life in NY and her weight loss struggles beginning in childhood were so real and approachable. I read those words in my own voice.

Sosenko uses charm, wit, sass and entitled apology to discuss anxiety, generational trauma, medical trauma, ADHD, the New York dating life and the constant battle for self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. She is so smart and funny. Her cutting wit is often turned inward, and makes the reader want to shake her, smack her and hug her, all at the same time.

I'll Look So Hot in a Coffin is an engaging read, that had me laughing out loud, seething with feminist rage, crying with empathy. Sosenko writes in a strong and independent voice and her memoir is an authentic reading experience that lingers.

This was a very good book. It was eye-opening, and I learned a lot about a new disorder that I’ve never heard about. It was also eye-opening just to see how people with different disabilities live life in such a different way. All of the struggles of the face that I will not think of made me think about how we should be more appreciative every day



Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

i love great memoirs and this one was most definitely a great memoir. tysm for the arc, would recommend it quite a bit. 5 stars.

The author was born with a rare disorder that, among other things, causes her legs to be different sizes and a large mass on her back. This memoir discusses her struggles with dating, her weight, and her need to belong. Candid and funny.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC!

In this memoir, Sosenko discusses the impact of her disability on friendships, family, her body image, and relationships.
The relationship with food/diet is very familiar, including the dieting and WW. The story of her relationship and hoping that she found love were heartbreaking.
A good insight on the different ways living with a disability impacts a person.

I have to admit that once I saw the title "I'll Look So Hot in a Coffin," I was immediately drawn to this memoirish book of essays by writer/author/editor Carla Sosenko.

As a lifelong paraplegic born with spina bifida (think open spine, scoliosis, urostomy and other oddities) who is now also a double amputee wheelchair user who survived two types of cancer in the past year, I'm likely to be a fan of anyone who approaches the human body with a certain degree of humor, vulnerability, and irreverence.

That's Carla Sosenko.

Sosenko was born with Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome, a rare vascular disorder resulting in legs of different sizes, a mass of flesh on her back, a hunched posture, and other physical peculiarities. Over the years, Sosenko seemed to vacillate between hiding her body and flaunting it. I can identify with this having bounced between hypersexuality and practical priesthood until I discovered, well, me.

"I'll Look So Hot in a Coffin" is candid and funny with occasional fits of melancholy and insight tossed in for good measure. Sosenko shares with remarkable candor what it was like growing up in an "unconventional" body and how it impacted her self-image, relationships, opportunities, mental health, and pretty much everything else.

She writes about having what amounted to forced liposuction at age eight (which for the record really ticks me off), her adventures with Weight Watchers, her views toward diet culture, her relationships (including a particularly unhealthy one that undoubtedly crossed the line into domestic violence), her transition into adulthood, and the somewhat miracle yet gift that resulted in her moving into a high-profile and very successful career in media.

Sosenko shares, at times uncomfortably so, her sense of isolation and her experiences with anxiety. She shares an awareness of being different, however, also not necessarily through the lens of disability. She learns, and at times it feels like she's learning it even as she writes, how to claim her body and to stop allowing others to define her life experience for her.

At times, I longed for that transition to be more obvious in "I'll Look So Hot in a Coffin." The last chapter, easily my favorite, feels like the lens I really longed for knowing where she's ended up. This sounds weird, at least for me, as I certainly valued Sosenko's meaningful and remarkably honest and open journey, however, I will admit I needed to experience the Sosenko who really claimed her life and her success and her, well, beauty (and if you've seen photos of her she is both physically unique and quite beautiful). I wanted to see the link between her journey between those "thoughts I used to have about my body" and how she learned to live her good life. In the final chapter, which both made me smile and somewhat brought me to tears (Yes, it's possible to be somewhat brought to tears), we begin to see how Sosenko took everything she experienced and became f***ing amazing.

"I'll Look So Hot in a Coffin," for us religious folks, feels like a cousin to "In heaven, you'll be "normal." F*** that. I love who I am now. If I have to change in heaven, I'm not interested.

"I'll Look So Hot in a Coffin" is an ideal memoir for anyone who's ever felt different, like an outsider, or like they don't have a place in the world. Taking a journey from feeling like she's taking up space to celebrating what sets her apart, Sosenko provides hope and celebration for all of us, myself included, who are square pegs in a round world.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I was most interested in this book because of the syndrome she has. My husband has this and I have a disability that I try to hide. So some of this book was relatable.
She writes with honesty and humor as she navigates her childhood then onto adult relationships.

I'm a sucker for a good memoir, and this is for sure one of my favorites of the year. Simultaneously hilarious, deeply honest, life-affirming, and wonderfully irreverent, Sosenko's writing made me feel like I was sitting at the bar with someone much more interesting than me listening to them chat about both their greatest success and greatest failures with untold joy and a dash of cynicism. I adored the creative liberties taken here, the topical layout, and the truths about the irrelevance of how any of our bodies look on any given day that I needed to hear again. Let's be honest, I need to hear them most days. I laughed actually out loud, immediately shared excerpts with my friends, and am already itching to start a reread.

12/10 would recommend for any woman in America (period), especially those who don't fit into today's "ideal body type" box.

Thank you #Netgalley for the advanced copy.

This read follows Carla in a series of essays documenting experiences throughout her life, both good and bad. Carla addresses her physical assets and how her health conditions have influenced her life to eventually not letting control her. This book really shows how Carla has evolved all tied with real life experiences, recommendations, funny lists and so much more.