I was really looking forward to How to Be Well by Amy Laraocca, especially after reading the publisher's blurb, I thought it would have useful insights and maybe even a few inspiring stories. But honestly, it didn't quite deliver what I hoped for. The book does cover a wide range of wellness ideas, which was interesting at times, but it all felt a bit like reading a report. Each idea was explained in a straightforward way, but without much personal connection or real-life examples. I kept waiting for stories about how people were actually using these wellness practices and how they felt afterwards.

Instead of showing us how to be well, the book mostly just goes over different ways people try to be well. And by the end, there wasn't much of a conclusion or takeaway, no clear sense of what actually works or what might be worth trying. If you're curious about what's trending in the wellness world, this would be a good overview. But if you're looking for inspiration, personal stories, or practical advice, this book might leave you feeling a little underwhelmed.

This book is aimed at readers who are jumping on the wellness bandwagon and spending serious money on trendy health products and practices.

Despite the title, the author spends very little time offering actual wellness advice. Instead, most of the book is focused on testing and debunking the gimmicks we see all over social media. She tries everything—from detoxes to crystals—and brings a critical, often humorous, perspective to each one.

If you already take a practical, evidence-based approach to wellness, this probably won’t offer much new insight. But if you’re wondering whether that latest cleanse or supplement trend is worth it, this book is definitely for you.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a self-aware critique of the almost 7 trillion dollar wellness industry from a journalist and former Fashion Director of New York Magazine. She comes at this topic from the point of view of someone very familiar with the beauty industry. I'm more familiar with the wellness industry as it intersects with metaphysical and spiritual businesses so I found her perspective really interesting. She mentions crystals and talks about meditation but most of the narrative contains critiques of "wellness" interventions - basically just rebranded diet, fitness, lifestyle, and beauty products. She covers colonics, cleanses, clean eating, cold plunges, biohacking, boutique medical care, and the image of the "well woman." Unsurprisingly, Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness and lifestyle brand Goop is mentioned quite a few times.

Larocca definitely has a particular perspective and - as a middle-aged, wealthy white woman - she is the target market for all of these products, services, and interventions. And she knows it. That and her journalism credentials position her to give an insider's look to those of us that can't afford a whole-body MRI out of pocket on a whim, a stay at a luxury wellness spa, or an at home colonic. 

Her critiques of wellness culture are fair - services and products run the gamut from effective and supportive/comforting at best, to complete quackery or health endangerment at the worst. She calls out how some wellness approaches to diet/cleansing are just repackaged eating disorders, how "clean living" adds another layer of anxiety and striving to motherhood, and how the ultimate goals of the wellness industry are the same as the beauty industry - playing on (or up) women's insecurities and social conditioning, reinforcing body anxiety, perfectionism, and constant striving.

Reccomended to anyone interested in critiques of the wellness/beauty/fashion industry or wellness/spiritual businesses. If you enjoyed this perspective you might also like: The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, and the Promise of Self-care by Rina Raphael, Yoke: My Yoga of Self-acceptance by Jessamyn Stanley.

This book is not about how to be well, but is a critique on the questionable wellness industry.. LaRocca discusses different fads and why people have turned to them and more. I thought this book was a fun read and pretty much read it in a day.

Thank you Knopf & Net Galley for an advanced copy of this one!

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free copy*

Note- This isn’t actually a guide on how to be well. This book is instead a list of wellness woo-woo traps, some of which the author goes into detail of the experience, having been through many herself.
The style was very dry and I felt little intrigue for the author’s back-to-back flings with expensive but ultimately useless products and services. If the author wasn’t constantly reminding the author how useless all of it was, I’d almost think she was bragging about it.

I was excited to read this book to get more information on all the fads that are out there to help us "Be Well'. I was most interested in what things she found were truly helpful and could help you move the needle in ones health as that is what interests me. All we really get is a snarky book about all the things you could use to be well and how none of them work. This book should have really been named something else.

I had this arc of the book but also was able to check out the audiobook at the library after the release date. Sadly the narrator made this sound even more snarky and laughable than reading the book. While some people might like this book , I am not one of them and sorry I wasted my time.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc.

2.5 stars rounded down to 2, because that's how I roll

I requested this e-ARC because I heard Amy Larocca talk about it on a podcast, and it sounded great. Unfortunately, I'm giving up about 40% of the way through because I've got a big TBR pile and not enough time for something I'm not invested in.

I'm glad the subtitle was changed--the one on my e-ARC is "Without Spending All You Money and Losing Your Mind--because this book really isn't about "how to be well", it's about how people fall into the trap of the concept of wellness. The idea is different for everyone, and social media (and long before that, print media) pushes so many different things in our faces that there is no one thing that means "wellness".

The problem is that Larocca doesn't give us anything but a sometimes snarky rundown of treatments and foods and ideas and ideals which she deems slightly (or greatly) foolish, while explaining that she herself indulges in some of them. There doesn't seem to be much actual advice here, and I don't really like reading an array of stories about the weirder side of an industry I try hard not to pay attention to.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book.

3.5 stars! What does it mean to be well? Amy takes a deep dive on this topic and some chapters were more interesting than others. I think the title is a little misleading because "how to be well" is not a question the author attempts to answer for us. Ultimately, it is very individualized and up to us to answer the question for ourselves. Thanks so much to NetGalley and Alfred Knopf for my advanced copy - it's out now!

Intriguing… but wasn’t for me. I was hoping this would be a great self help book on wellness but it more was just a critique on wellness fads. Which don’t get me wrong, some of them are really wild and out there.

This is a complete waste of time and the most dishonest title ever. The author spends the whole book looking at expensive, name-dropping "treatments", none of which work. Don't waste your time.

Amy Larocca isn't afraid to tell you all the "wellness" nonsense she's tried. She explores the origins of some trends and provides crucial background to others. This book is great for someone who isn't familiar with wellness grifts. From a knowledgeable perspective, the book could use more criticism. Larocca comes to the same conclusion that most educated people do. You'll have to read to find out what it is.

An eye-opening book presented in a gentle way. The author studies the origins of many "wellness" practices and how they often get watered down due to capitalism til they have no true benefits to anyone but the person making the money off of them. It definitely causes you to be more studious about what you do and don't do for your health and where you get your information from.

I really like fiction and nonfiction books about the self-care and wellness industries so this drew me right in but I was skeptical if the author could really say anything I hadn’t already heard. I almost gave up at the beginning, but once I got through a couple of the (short) first chapters, I liked Larocca’s writing style. She analyzes and draws logical and scientific conclusions but she is never dismissive.

How to Be Well was an eye opening informative look at the modern world of health.Really entertaining showing how trendy almost cult like the search for the latest diet healthy life style guru to follow. ,interesting how women who were leaders in the fashion industry have switched to the health industry.Well written entertaining #netgalley #how to be well

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a free copy eARC to review for my opinion.

I requested a copy of this book because I’ve watched the “wellness” world for decades, and seeing how it’s evolved has been fascinating, infuriating, and mindboggling. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the number of hucksters seems to have exploded, helped along by the rise of TikTok and other social media platforms where "influencers" promise results with detoxes, hacks, and "miracle" protocols. It’s a crowded, chaotic space, and Amy Larocca’s "How to Be Well" steps in like a stylish anthropologist with a front-row seat.

Larocca’s background in fashion journalism serves her well here. She offers a sleek, observant, and often wry look at the contemporary wellness industry—a world where aspiration, anxiety, and aesthetic perfection swirl into one overpriced smoothie. The book isn’t a manual for better living so much as a curated tour of what affluent people are doing (and buying) in pursuit of youth, beauty, and control over an increasingly uncertain world.

If you're already skeptical of GOOP, astrology apps, and healing crystals—if you think PT Barnum was probably understating the case—then you'll find this book confirms many of your suspicions. At the same time, Larocca doesn’t come off as smug or dismissive. She seems to understand that underneath all the branding, there’s a very human, very old desire to be healthier, happier, and just a little more radiant than the person next to you.

In the end, "How to Be Well" is a snapshot of a cultural moment: glossy, absurd, sometimes sincere, and deeply revealing. It's worth flipping through if you’re curious about how far people will go (and how much they’ll spend) to feel like they're doing something.

Loved this book about the wellness industry and all the ways they are capitalizing on womens insecurities. This is a book for anyone who feels bogged down by the need to keep up when you are barely scraping by (me as hell)

This book examines wellness at the intersection of (among other things) culture, wealth and privilege, politics, and religion.

There's a lot of discussion on how wellness trends and fads are marketed and sold to women and by wellness, I mean she writes about colonics, yoga, crystals, organic food, cleanses, meditation, and more.

I found it interesting but thought there would be more scientific debunking instead it reads as a history of the industry. Regardless, I enjoyed the book and it was a great read during lunch hours at work. Reading instead of working at my desk is wellness for me!

This was a really interesting and well written book! I loved how the author went through both the social and the medical aspects of wellness, and I really liked the way she structured the book as well. Overall, in our age of social-media wellness gurus, and the quest for health after COVID and other issues, this book was a breath of fresh air.

Book: How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time
Author: Amy Larocca
Rating: 4 Out of 5 Stars

I want to thank the publisher, Knopf, for providing me with an ARC. I enjoyed this a lot and thought it was an interesting read. However, I do feel like this book could fall victim to marketing. What is about and the summary do not match. It is an in-depth look into popular diets, not a look at how to be well.

From Peloton and Pilates to biohacking, colonics, and ashwagandha, today the wellness industry has grown into a three-point-seven-trillion-dollar giant that reaches nearly everyone. Journalist Amy Larocca digs beneath the surface of this massive movement, questioning its promises and revealing the profits driving it. She investigates how wellness became woven into daily life, particularly in women's lives, and how its influence continues to expand. This book takes readers inside the communities devoted to trends like activated-charcoal toothpaste and green-juice enemas, demystifying what these practices are and what science says about them. With a critical eye, she examines how the wellness industry reflects and reinforces gendered, class-based, and racialised ideas about care and self-improvement, while also capitalising on deep-seated fears of the unknown. Tracing the long history of beauty and fashion industries selling "snake oil" remedies, the book explores why, despite it all, people keep returning for more.

I enjoyed this deep dive into the wellness market and learning more about it. While the book does focus mainly on women, there is a section about men. We get to see all of the trends in wellness and how it is a money-making thing, which a lot of things are in the first place. The book does a deep dive into all of the promises that come with the wellness industry and how it never goes as promised. How does the author know this? Larocca uses her own experiences with the wellness industry as her starting point. Not only do we get the research and scientific, or lack of, side of things, we also get the author’s personal experience, which made me enjoy the book even more.

The fact that the author admits that she put a ton of money into the wellness industry and shares her personal story adds another layer to the book. I would not have enjoyed this book as much as I did had she not done that. It adds a more personal and human side to the message that she is trying to get across. She tries the latest fads and pays a lot of money with the hopes of being well. However, none of these trends gave her the results that she had been promised. What the lesson about this book is, it’s more about living a healthy lifestyle than chasing the latest trend, which is something that we all know deep down, but it doesn’t stop a lot of people. It’s about the money, because the wellness industry is big business. Now I am not saying that we shouldn’t take care of ourselves, but we do need to think about what we are doing to our bodies and if it is scientifically proven to not only work, but is truly healthy for us.

I did like the dive into pop culture and the role it plays in the wellness journey. Celebrities and influencers, like it or not, do have power, and people do look up to them. So many times, we see someone whom we admire doing something and think that we should try that. That is looked at closely in this book. At the end of the day, it is a bunch of very wealthy people who have no scientific training who are telling people what to do. I also enjoyed the look into TV doctors and how they have questionable practices as well.

Despite being well done, this book does not offer any actual and doable advice on how to be well, which does make me think that, sadly, this book is going to be a victim of marketing. I think the marketing needs to change, and it will draw in the intended audience. This is sad because this book is very well done.

Overall, I did enjoy this title a lot. If you want to know more about the wellness industry, then I encourage you to give this one a try.

This book comes out on May 13, 2025.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/2W4ZlNs9x20

This book is a multipurpose: you can read it as a satire, exposé, or a guide to the wellness industry. There are several positive attributes of this book I would like to note: it is well organized and informative; it is funny; the voice Amy is using is spot on, you would want to quote from her book; and finally, it is not too long which is a blessing compared to some other nonfiction tomes nowadays. The natural audience for this book would be apparently younger women, but it can be recommended for mature people, too. The allure of 'being well' is strong for all ages.