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Everybody's Favorite: Tales from the World's Worst Perfectionist

by Lillian Stone

Essays on perfectionism, early-2000s girlhood, and self-acceptance

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Hardcover New English

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Awards & Recognition

  • Editorial selection

    Glamour Best Nonfiction Books of 2023

    Included in Glamour's Best Nonfiction Books of 2023.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Essays on perfectionism, early-2000s girlhood, and self-acceptance

Lillian Stone’s essay collection traces a lifelong urge to be liked and flawless through memories of early-2000s life in the Ozarks. Personal anecdotes connect evangelical childhood, AOL-era adolescence, adulthood, a difficult beagle, and Stone’s experience of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Across these episodes, the book examines the pressures that shape ideas of acceptable femininity and the compromises involved in trying to meet shifting expectations. Humor and self-deprecation frame an account of religious trauma, anxiety, and the gradual work of choosing self-acceptance over other people’s standards.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in personal essays about perfectionism and people-pleasing
  • Fans of early-2000s nostalgia and coming-of-age reflections
  • Readers seeking candid nonfiction that addresses anxiety, OCD, and religious trauma

Themes

PerfectionismSelf-acceptanceEarly-2000s girlhoodReligious traumaAnxiety and OCD

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"Many have tried, and many will try, to capture the sweet, innocent insanity of life as a young girl during the '90s and 2000s. None have come close to the comedic perfection Lillian Stone nails again and again in Everybody's Favorite." --Glamour, Best Nonfiction Books of 2023

From one of the Internet's favorite self-deprecating commentators comes Everybody's Favorite, a laugh-out-loud essay collection that tackles the relentless pursuit of perfection while navigating growing up in the early 2000s.

Lillian Stone--childhood evangelical, AOL girlfriend, and professional nail biter is always living on the edge of anxiety. From the pitfalls of a girl plagued by religious trauma, the incomprehensible yet unforgiving need for perfection, and a poorly-behaved twenty-pound beagle, Everybody's Favorite is a refreshing story of what it means to pick yourself when the world is telling you otherwise. Still navigating the ins and outs of adulthood, accompanied by an obsessive-compulsive disorder that's become an exercise in self-acceptance and thus compassion, Lillian has become an expert in fighting the urge to be someone else's idea of perfect. In this laugh-out-loud essay collection, replete with cringe-inducing touchstones of an early-aughts girlhood, Lillian Stone recounts her quest to be everybody's favorite.

Set largely during the early 2000s Ozarks, and peppered with Stone's biting satire and gloriously self-deprecating personal anecdotes, Everybody's Favorite is a wry, empathetic look at the chaos that ensues when we contort ourselves into an ever-changing assortment of socially acceptable shapes --only to fall out of place, twist an ankle, pee your pants a little, and realize that the pursuit of perfection isn't really all that interesting.

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