Self Care

by Russell Smith

An electric examination of women and men, sex and love, self-loathing and twenty-first century loneliness.

Between Daily Self Care, the weekly column she writes for the website The Hype Report, and managing her mood stabilizers, Gloria navigates her quasi-relationship with Florian and commiserates with Isabel, her best friend, about dating apps and dick pics, married men and questionable boundaries. But when she makes a glib pass at Darin, a stranger wearing a sad face pin on a subway platform crowded with young male protestors leaving an anti-immigration rally, and finds him waiting for her outside her health club the next day, curiosity leads her not to consider a restraining order, but to talk to him.

Claiming she wants to interview him for an article she’s writing on the incel movement, Gloria meets Darin for coffee and soon invites him back to her apartment—where his strange earnestness and painfully restrained desire inspire her to dominate him sexually. As their sexual relationship intensifies, so does their emotional connection, and Gloria can’t shake her sense that she’s headed in a dangerous direction. An electric examination of women and men, sex and love, self-loathing and twenty-first century loneliness, Self-Care is a devastating novel about all the ways we try to cope—with ourselves, and with each other.

Genres: Canada, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Mental Health, Friendship

288 pages, Paperback

Published October 21, 2025

About the author

Russell Claude Smith is a Canadian writer and newspaper columnist. Smith's novels and short stories are mostly set in Toronto, where he lives.

Smith grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He attended the Halifax Grammar School and Queen Elizabeth High School, and studied French literature at Queen's University, the University of Poitiers, and the University of Paris III. He has an MA in French from Queen's.

Russell Smith is one of Canada’s funniest and nastiest writers. His previous novels, including How Insensitive and Girl Crazy, are records of urban frenzy and exciting underworlds. He writes a provocative weekly column on the arts in the national Globe and Mail, and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Guelph. He hates folk music.

Reviews

[Jeanelle d'Eon]

I rage finished this book in two days.

People are going to look back at this book and think “what the fuck was going on in the 2020s”. And honestly, I don’t know man. Things were bad. Why are the nazis back. Of all the groups. How did this happen. People are not okay.

Anyway. If you want to read the horrors while living the horrors. Dig in.

[Jillian B]

When the life of Gloria, a young writer, becomes entangled with that of an incel, things get weird. This book was so interesting to me because I’m still not really sure what we’re meant to take away from it, but there were moments that were so on point. I really liked the ending, although it felt like it took too long to get there. And to the author’s credit, he managed to write a complex young female protagonist without it ever feeling too “men writing women.” Of all the books I’ve read by men that have sex scenes, this is the one that shows the greatest understanding of the female orgasm! The satirical portrayal of media and academia was also absolutely spot on.

The strangest part of the book to me was honestly the lack of understanding of current trends. I had to check to make sure this wasn’t supposed to be set 10 years ago. It takes place in Toronto, where I live, and the setting felt very real. But all the cool young guys at the club had man buns, deep V-necks and scarves? And a guy is seen as uncool for wearing a chain, a very normal Gen Z look? I’m 35, and this felt like a stereotype of the hipsters who were around when I was in my 20s, not modern day young people. It sounds so shallow but it kind of pulled me out of the book. The main character was also sometimes kind of exasperating, even though I usually like unlikeable, self-sabotaging characters.

I genuinely don’t know how to feel about this one!

[Kayla Phillips]

#menwritingwomen

[Jonathan Rose]

Self Care is an addictive and compelling reflection of what young Millenials are enduring in today's time of sensory bombardment that has left them in a state of what appears to be constant emotional and mental exhaustion. The story's main characters are incredibly flawed, yet it is within those flaws that we are able to see their humanity, in all its glorious discomfort. Even when exploring the world of incels, Russell Smith does so with empathy, not condoning their views or behaviour, but simply showing it for us, the readers, to form our own opinions. A page turner in every sense, Self Care is a book that after reading, immediately makes you want to walk around the streets of Toronto and see the world so vividly shown in its pages.

[celena]

3.75 I think.

I picked this book up blind at a local bookstore in an attempt to read something for once that had not been influenced by online reviews.

Man, this felt like witnessing a train wreck. Not that the book was badly written, I enjoyed the pacing and the dialogue, a breath of fresh air in comparison to what I had been reading lately. And normally I don't enjoy reading books that are set in Toronto, but the use of the setting here was not overbearing, which I liked.

Gloria, though, continues to make worse and worse decisions and it physically filled me with dread. There are many parts of her I can see in myself. Her unfiltered thoughts are realistic and her overthinking is compelling by just virtue of its familiarity. But while she can recognize her negative traits, she just indiscriminately indulges in her vices without enough consideration for the consequences. I feel like that could be said about many of these characters. Each time you begin think Daryn might not be a bad guy, he does something terrifying unprovoked. There was absolutely no positive character development in anybody. The ending was not surprising given all of the events that led up to it, but it did not make me feel any less terrible.

It was very interesting to read about all these broken people, hoping that things might change for the better only to be disappointed. I was uncomfortable and and upset while reading this but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

[Julia]

First review what!! That’s a lot of pressure. Spoilers ahead btw

This book held my attention throughout but I didn’t find anything particularly surprising about it in the end… Like men’s rights incel guy turns out to be unhinged, beautiful woman who has a lot of sex dies, FMC’s life is left in shambles and I guess I was expecting the story would reach for something less tropey and land on a more substantial commentary, but I couldn’t figure out what that was supposed to be so even as the ending was kinda satisfying it was also kinda womp womp

I did love the wholehearted Ontarian-ness of it and all the sharp irreverent dialogue that kind of sweeps you along. It felt very of this moment without having that terminally online feeling that’s a bit depressing to encounter in a novel. Curious what other folks will have to say about it

[Colin Boyd]

Look, I'm a Russell Smith fan. I am; I will always seek out his works. But can we agree that 'Self Care' is less of an incisive critique of our current cultural moment and more of a rehash of tropes we've encountered again and again and again in Smith since 1994's 'How Insensitive'?

His Toronto seems forever frozen in amber. In the 1994 novel, Ted Owen, though broke, pays ten-dollar cover charges and sips outrageously overpriced 'six-dollar beers' in noisy nightclubs where the loudspeakers chant things like 'COME ON, F-- ME.' In 2025, Gloria, though broke, will randomly pull into a bar for a $22 glass of wine or a noisy nightclub where the loudspeakers chant things like 'What the stop doin', what the stop doin'.'

In 1994 we had Go-Go, the gorgeous but troubled recent university drop-out, 'kind of depressed, kind of f--ed up,' and survivor of the (glib hairflip) 'anorexia bulimia scene.' In 2025 we have the 'hot' but troubled Isabel, the #boredcitygirl, who is also, we learn, kind of depressed and kind of, like, f--ed up.

In 1994 the characters are fresh from their courses on deconstruction, semiotics and intertextuality; in 2025 it's Social Critique of Narrative, Decolonization, and Intergenerational Trauma. In both cases, the discourse is empty, a pose like everything else in the city.

In 1994, anything outside the orbit of downtown Toronto is treated with scorn; think of Ted’s encounter with the sad-sack Bill McLoed, once a high school pal but now saddled with a wife (‘juggling Tupperware’), a baby, and – worst fate of all in a Smith universe – a starter-home in Markham. In 2025, Gloria is conscious of Daryn’s profoundly unhip suburban origins: after all, ‘he wasn’t from downtown and didn’t know the name of any bands or podcasts or microbreweries.’ (I guess music streaming services, YouTube, and LCBOs that stock roughly 1000 different brands of microbrewery IPAs don’t exist north of Bloor: good to know.)

Honestly, by the end of ‘Self Care’ I was half hoping for a cameo appearance from Ted Owen himself: perhaps as an embittered man, well past middle age, twice-divorced, and working in legal services at a tech-bro company. That would be mondo fun. Perhaps the next installment.

[Danna]

Damn. Pretty nuts. Shows a nasty underbelly that is sometimes hard to get through but I found it so compelling and a real (and scary!) glimpse into what a lot of people are dealing with. Yowzaaaa.

[Courtney Crawford]

this book was really fucking weird

[Helen Lin]

A romance between a feminist and an incel - some of this was so difficult to read but Smith does a good job highlighting the current state of gender polarity, dating, mental health and loneliness. While I sometimes wanted to throw this book at the wall I also applaud its boldness in its attempt to showcase the complexity in some of society’s most outcasted groups

[Laurel McLean]

A feminist journalist dating an incel - interesting premise that definitely kept me intrigued. That said I couldn’t really figure out what the book was trying to say. The characters also felt more like exaggerated caricatures than real people (the friend with the weird sound effects and hand gestures??) I did love the Toronto setting but if this is supposed to be the 2020s what are the deep v necks, man buns, and scarves lol

[Oghenefejiro]

Let me stay of out white people’s business cause what ?

I finished this in one day because i wanted to see where it would go with Daryn and Gloria. These type of books end up being quite shallow and barely saying what it intended to say. Daryn was racist and somehow gloria was ok with that. i liked how it wasn’t victim blaming because it obviously had a true clear villain here despite the author’s mission to make women seem awful and that was men are scary.

[Ciara]

Self Care is incredibly readable but feels like the literary equivalent of a centrist that wants you to know they think the left and right have both gone too far. i really enjoyed the humour and was thoroughly engaged, but i just had a nagging discomfort with the way the subject matter was explored.

[Emma]

I actually fucking hated this book. It’s cool that it’s in Toronto and it flows really easily, but the story was out of touch and cringey to me. I thought it might wrap up with a message but the end was unsatisfying as well. What was the point?

[Héloïse Braun]

What the fuck

[Maryka Meloche]

3,25⭐️
C’était un gros ramassis d’enjeux sociaux/psychologiques (TSM, addictions, sexe, suicide, violence psychologique, rôle femmes/hommes, enjeux politiques, et plus encore)
J’ai quand même accroché à l’histoire, même si à certains moments ça me semblait absurde ou exagéré, les enjeux étaient quand même bien illustrés selon moi
Gloria m’a un peu énervé, elle prenait constamment des mauvaises décisions et restait dans ses vieux patterns

[Alexia]

We all have preconceived ideas about literally everyone else and if we talked to each other more we’d find out we’re more alike than we think, AND that sometimes your prejudices are correct lol. This is “Let’s all kill ourselves: the novel”

[Robyn Manning]

This book!! 🤯

[Maryam]

a difficult but excellent read.

[Mia]

Genuinely such a gripping book. This one was in a genre I often don’t read but it was able to lock me in tight. There is something about it being based in a setting so real that resonated with me and the plot line itself had me on the edge of my seat. Gloria has her faults no doubt and did she maybe take it too far with a man who clearly needs some help but also is very vulnerable, yes, but something about her character speaks to me. There were some areas of the book that I felt needed higher concentration to understand but overall really interesting and well written.

[Madeline]

Smut (😼) 2 stars

[Jessica Smiley]

I stayed up until 5:00am reading this novel unable to stop. Smith captured a raw and real experience of being a young adult in Toronto.

Will be recommending this to all my Toronto friends.

[Sydnie]

This book was difficult to get through, not because it was a complex topic, but because the characters were half baked and unlikable at best. The premise was somewhat intriguing, but the actual book lacked any amount of depth to make it worth reading. I literally only finished it so that I could write this review.

[tegwyn anne]

really don’t know how to feel about this one. weird bad. very bleak!

[Diane Bracuk]

Decades before the term came into existence, I was friends with a guy who might, by today’s standards, have displayed some incel tendencies. Attractive enough and with a good job, he nevertheless deplored his lack of success with the unattainable women he pined for—the models, the popular girls, the cheerleader types he believed would reject him immediately because of his short stature and lack of quarterback abs.

I wonder now, in our Internet era, whether he would have found his way to the red-pill and incel forums that tear apart the very women their members can’t get. Which is one reason I was so looking forward to reading Russell Smith’s new novel, Self Care.

First off, I should say that I was always a fan of Smith’s Globe and Mail columns and his knack for capturing cultural shifts. He does that again here, capturing the often bleak reality of today’s millennial world: dating apps, porn-influenced sex, precarious content-writing jobs, quasi-relationships and, of course, the proliferation of digital misogyny.

The story follows Gloria, a millennial scraping out a living as a freelance writer in Toronto, living in a crappy apartment she can barely afford even with a roommate. In an effort to improve her mental health, she decides to break off a one-sided, situationship with Florian, who enjoys choking her during sex without her consent. Smith is adept at capturing a very contemporary kind of anxiety that comes with this decision:

“—and now this fact that there was no boy she was trying to break up with, that she had actually done it, this fact was not upsetting or invigorating, just a silence, an empty room, the train stalled in the tunnel:the anxiety that interstice created was not a fear of being alone, it was more
of a problem with attention span; it was the anxiety of not having a signal for your phone and a long time to wait."

Breaking up with him will toss her back into the broader dating pool of noncommitment and lowered expectations. Isabel, her best friend—a gorgeous model type who hasn’t had much luck with relationships either—spells out its dispiriting reality:

“We’re going to meet in a pub with a pool table and like hockey on TV screens. He’s going to suggest we meet after dinner because he can’t afford to pay for dinner. And he’s going to tell me about his favourite profs. Because he has read Jung and like Joseph Campbell and he wants to know if I have read The Hero's Path or whatever. And then he's going to send a dick pic, and I'll be like whatever, that's sweet. Then we have sex, and then he doesn't call me."

When Gloria meets Daryn through a chance encounter, it is obvious that he is an incel. Yet she makes the questionable choice to begin a physical relationship with him, taking on the role of a domme and instructing him on how to bring her pleasure on her terms. Despite the numerous red flags, she begins to feel empathy for him. Perhaps Daryn isn’t the stereotypical incel monster she assumed him to be, but someone pushed toward these views by a damaging upbringing. As she encourages him to delve into his motivations, she finds herself unwittingly drawn into an emotional relationship with him.

For me, this was one of the most poignant passages in the book, capturing the longing, after so much romantic failure and disappointment, to finally lower your defenses with someone—even when that person is glaringly problematic:

“She took off her shoes and folded her legs under her and thought of how normal this could be, to be sitting beside someone on a Friday night and drinking wine at home, because you were going to have sex later and probably get food together. It wasn’t really the sex she wanted, although that
was fine. The idea of this thing was nice, and he would certainly want to do that, in fact long to do that, and to give into it would be easy, but very silly, not because it would be giving into Florian. Who always made her feel for brief moments that such a thing may be possible and then instantly left her alone and embarrassed, that this was almost the opposite problem in a way she
couldn’t work out.”


Unfortunately, Daryn’s seething jealousy and resentment soon erupt. Texts such as “Where are you right now? Who are you with?” quickly turn into “You disgusting slut. What a fucking whore" when she doesn't respond to him immediately when out with friends. No spoilers, but Gloria remains in their situationship even as it becomes increasingly disturbing.

My measure of a good novel is whether it stays with me after I’ve finished it, and I often find myself thinking about the characters in this one—and about my long-ago friend, who both longed for and resented beautiful women and who, in another era, might have found a bitter camaraderie on incel forums. For its exploration of love, sex and loneliness—and the sometimes painfully relatable reasons we make bad decisions—I highly recommend Self Care.

[Mish Middelmann]

What an awkward read - and that is the point! This book is filled with anger and self doubt and radical awkwardness in relationships. It gives us insight into the world young adults inhabit in 2025 in Toronto, and I dare say many other parts of the world, and it is a scary and depressing place to be. The milieu of emptiness, disconnection from meaning, reliance on prescription and non-prescription medications, and summary judgement has a powerful effect on the individuals in the story.

Smith writes well and engages us beyond the headlines one might read in the news. He makes the dating scene real. He evokes the atmosphere of polarised politics real at many levels including class and left-wing/right-wing and of course focusing on heterosexual love and hate.

I found it strange that the author, who very clearly identifies as a man, chose to write the book from a woman's point of view. What if he'd been able to really open up the life of a believable involuntary celibate to understand what lies beneath this ugly unhinged danger to women? Is it just too risky for a man to appear in any way sympathetic to an incel?

On the one hand, I think Smith was brave to illuminate a bit of what it is like for young men associated with the "incel" label without resorting to simple condemnation. I noted that this book was rejected for funding by a variety of arts councils - presumably because there is such widespread and blanket fear and condemnation of these men, no doubt much of it deserved.

On the other hand, we experience the whole story through the eyes and voice and body of Gloria, a woman who also crosses the line in making relationship with a younger incel man. One thing that the book makes abundantly clear is that young people of both genders are finding dating and sex extremely awkward to navigate. All the characters are hungry for real relationship and unsatisfied by the sex they do or don't experience. But having touched the taboo of having some empathy for involuntary celibate men, why not examine their experience a bit more deeply?

Daryn, the young man in this story fluctuates alarmingly between three poles. He's young, vulnerable and pathetic at one pole. He's an inexperienced but enthusiastic, caring and sensitive lover at another pole. And he is a hateful, angry, threatening bigot at the third pole.

The story examines in some detail how Gloria feels some perverse attraction to the first, vulnerable self Daryn presents to her. He seems to be something of an antidote to some of her other lovers' callous selfishness and independence. Everyone loves to be loved, Smith suggests, and even needy vulnerability mixed with loving attraction is better than nothing.

She barely admits to enjoying him as a lover (the second pole of his personality) - but she does, and he's able to submit to all the roles she needs to explore before she actually begins to enjoy sex with him. Actually in my opinion it is quite natural - all that physical intimacy, even if awkward and confused, is still intimacy and can warm the heart.

The climax of the book, perhaps unsurprisingly, features that third and ugliest pole of Daryn's personality. For our narrator, Gloria, he is rather like a ticking time bomb. His swings between the three poles seem like random fluctuations.

But in my experience, people rarely fluctuate quite randomly. There is almost always an inner narrative that makes some level of sense to the owner of the behaviours, even if the person can't articulate what swings them from - in Daryn's case - gentleness and gratitude to anger, hatred and threats of violence.

So I remain after reading the book curious - who will write a book like this from the incel's point of view, without either demonising the awkward, angry young man or supporting his misogyny and threats? Daryn seems like a prime character for such an exploration. He is on the edge of the fascist right wing crowd, and as mentioned he veers into ugly misogynistic hatred - and at the same time he seems quite genuine in his desire to have a real and respectful relationship with Gloria.

As the book makes clear, there are a lot of people who feel and behave in some way like Daryn, and there might be more people out there like Gloria than simple logic would suggest.

[The Idea Shop]

For his first novel in fifteen years. award-winning author Russell Smith fully embraces his well-deserved reputation as a cultural anthropologist of urban life in the city.

Self Care is a brilliant novel which seems to be effortlessly built from Smith's trademark insights of keenly observed social anthropology. A chance meeting between Gloria and Daryn, two twenty-somethings living in Canada’s largest city is all the pretense Smith needs to work his considerable storytelling magic.

Gloria, a part-time columnist for a website called The Hype who writes about urban general interest subject matter ranging from sex to suicide seems an unlikely love interest for Daryn. He is a part-time electronics store worker who lives at home and is apparently connected to a loosely organized incel subculture of men who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one.

Strangely fascinated by Daryn, Gloria uses the journalistic pretense of interviewing him for her column to get to know him better, and perhaps confirm some of her worst thoughts of him.

Despite their own misgivings and reticence, a peculiar intimacy begins to form between them and the narrative takes flight

In Smith's capable hands, Self Love offers a cautionary tale with an irresistible emotional core that presents the complex intricacies of love and intimacy in today's fast-moving world of information and digital awareness in a thoroughly readable fashion.

Despite technology making multiple forms of communication possible, Smith ensures that pure conversation, and its many pitfalls, plays hard against the many forms of digital engagement we sometimes take for granted today. His talent for capturing conversation and it's nuances is truly remarkable

Unconventional, unforgettable but absolutely not improbable, in Smith's capable hands, Self Care weaves together the strands of today's societal norms and preoccupations into one of the most unique love stories we've had the pleasure of reading for some time.

[Valentina]

God I was so enamoured by this book, and I couldn't help but love gloria through all her faults and mistakes through how much I understood her actions and her thoughts. There were so many points in the book were I couldn't help but just understand her, and I think Smith wrote Gloria as a character and as a woman, insanely well.

I really enjoyed the complex emotions I had for daryn at the beginning, that slowly turned into anger towards the end as he kept spiralling. But seriously at the beginning it was hard to actually hate him other than him just being a little annoying. Because, Daryn just seemed like a pathetic kid that had nothing going for him, so you sympathize with him in that sense. But then he like went batshit and became so annoying and I was so pissed off and scared because of him, which makes sense ?!

All these characters were pleasantly complex and frustrating. Everyone felt so real, like they were actual real people and I really appreciated that. Smith had a way of making the dialogue so natural and immersive and I genuinely thank him for that, because it added so much to all the scenes and I completely lost myself into this book to the point where these became real people.

This is literally the first book I've read in months and i'm really happy it was, it's made me excited to read again. Really great way to start off 2026.

[Patrick Conner]

Self Care is a provocative contemporary novel that examines loneliness, relationships, desire, self-loathing, and the complicated ways people attempt to cope with themselves and one another. Russell Smith places these themes within the messy realities of modern dating and emotional connection.

Gloria's experiences provide a particularly compelling perspective. Her work, friendships, dating experiences, and interactions with Florian and Darin gradually become intertwined, creating a story that explores the boundaries between curiosity, intimacy, vulnerability, and danger.

The novel also engages with contemporary social issues, including online dating culture, the incel movement, protest politics, and twenty-first century loneliness. These elements give the personal relationships a broader social context.

At 288 pages, the novel offers enough space to develop its characters and explore the tensions at the center of Gloria's life. Its combination of literary fiction, contemporary themes, friendship, romance, and psychological complexity gives it broad discussion potential.

With a 3.39 Goodreads rating from 311 ratings and 80 reviews, Self Care has already generated substantial reader engagement. Its provocative themes and contemporary subject matter provide strong opportunities for continued discovery among literary fiction and contemporary readers.

[Alyssa]

i love a book set in a city I know and can relate to. but this was like a time capsule for the 2010s in terms of trends and what is seen as cool, and i’m supposed to act like it’s set in the present day? don’t get me started on the characters. they just feel like mouthpieces for smith’s small research he did into incel culture and the cynical woke. it’s so clear to me this is just an older man trying to stay current with trends and trying to show the taboo of a woman obsessed with and scared of this big dick incel. and the ending is just so typical of a doomer book like this. i will say this was a very easy to read book, but I would just get so tired of the characters.

however i am definitely not the target audience of this book as a 21 year old lesbian who grew up with unrestricted internet access. every thought about incels and about young men turning down an extremist pipeline I have seen online since a preteen. however i can’t deny the relatability of gloria and her ssri’s. i do think her stopping taking her meds just because she wants to come HAS to have come out of a man’s brain. because the one time i went off my meds i just got even more suicidal and trust that does not make you want to have sex or masturbate.