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

http://www.renaud-bray.com

http://www.renaud-bray.com

One of Glamour’s 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 alongside the topsy-turvy, sometimes painful, and often hilarious negotiations that happen within Stone’s obsessive-compulsive brain.Lilian 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 twenty-pound beagle she never meant to keep, 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, in a community enveloped within evangelism, 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.