How to Ruin Everything: Essays

by George Watsky

Book Overview

A New York Times Bestseller

"Funny, subversive, and able to excavate such brutally honest sentences that you find yourself nodding your head in wonder and recognition."
--Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer and lyricist of In the Heights and Hamilton: An American Musical

Are you a sensible, universally competent individual? Are you tired of the crushing monotony of leaping gracefully from one lily pad of success...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0147515998
• ISBN13: 9780147515995
• Release Date: June 2016
• Publisher: Plume Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Uproariously funny & thought-provoking memoir

I've been a fan of Watsky's rap music since I was 16, but this book shows his roots as being first and foremost an excellent writer. Whether he's describing the time his mother tearfully accused his delinquent elementary-schooler self of growing up to "steal houses", or the time he, a vegetarian, smuggled ivory across the Canadian border for someone's hundredth birthday, every sentence is a glorious combination of good humor and true ennui. Like his music, his stories are focused - everything mentioned is relevant later, and what seems like digression always has a point that you don't even see until the second listen/reread. You will laugh. You may not cry, but the dark and sad parts of you will feel understood. You will certainly come out of the other end of reading this a different and better person, more equipped to understand mortality, boredom, self-destruction, embarrassment, and joy.