Service95 recommends How Should A Person Be? by Sheila Heti

How Should A Person Be?

Sheila Heti

Service95 Recommends is the home of the books we love and reviews from our contributors. How Should A Person Be? by Sheila Heti is a darkly humorous, semi-autobiographical tour of one woman’s heart and mind.

What We Say: “Don’t let the title put you off, this semi-autobiographical novel isn’t totally existential. Sheila is in her twenties, has recently left her marriage, and is wondering how a person should be. She decides it simply must be her friend Margaux, an untortured painter who seems to live and create art effortlessly. It’s an autobiographical novel turned postmodern self-help book, where real emails and transcripts collide with contemporary fiction to make up Sheila’s experimental quest for authenticity. Come for the humour, stay for the chapter entirely dedicated to Sheila’s toxic lover’s... certain body part.” – Natalie Beecroft

What They Say: “A seriously strange but funny plunge into the quest for authenticity” –Margaret Atwood

Available on Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble

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Natalie Beecroft is a London-based writer and contributing writer for Service95 

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