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The Only Thing There Is to Want: A Memoir of Three Loves
Not yet published
Expected 29 Sep 26The New York Times bestselling author of Blackout excavates the romantic entanglements that defined her adulthood—an electrifying and unflinching account of the ways we choose love, it chooses us, and how those choices build a life.
“I’m scared I only want what I can’t have,” I said.
“Oh baby,” he said. “It’s the only thing there is to want.”
Sarah Hepola wanted so much: a big career; travel and adventure; deep relationships; passion. Having realized so many of those desires, she also grieved the ways her life was not what she’d always imagined it would be. Did I want too much, she wondered. Did I make the wrong choices? Love the wrong people?
In The Only Thing There Is To Want, Hepola revisits three complicated love affairs from her past, seeking to understand how they might have kept her from the life she’d envisioned, but also made her who she is. Examining her own decisions, Hepola probes the question: Is love ever really a choice?
This dazzling portrait of the mirages of modern romance captures the paradox of desire: wanting propels us forward and holds us back. Funny, achingly tender, and fearlessly intimate, The Only Thing There Is to Want is about discovering the beauty in the life you’ve built.
“I’m scared I only want what I can’t have,” I said.
“Oh baby,” he said. “It’s the only thing there is to want.”
Sarah Hepola wanted so much: a big career; travel and adventure; deep relationships; passion. Having realized so many of those desires, she also grieved the ways her life was not what she’d always imagined it would be. Did I want too much, she wondered. Did I make the wrong choices? Love the wrong people?
In The Only Thing There Is To Want, Hepola revisits three complicated love affairs from her past, seeking to understand how they might have kept her from the life she’d envisioned, but also made her who she is. Examining her own decisions, Hepola probes the question: Is love ever really a choice?
This dazzling portrait of the mirages of modern romance captures the paradox of desire: wanting propels us forward and holds us back. Funny, achingly tender, and fearlessly intimate, The Only Thing There Is to Want is about discovering the beauty in the life you’ve built.
- GenresMemoir
320 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication September 29, 2026
About the author
Sarah Hepola
10 books371 followersSarah Hepola is the personal essays editor at Salon.com, where she reads people’s secrets for a living. She has written many stories about drinking and eating too much. Her essays on culture have appeared in the New York Times magazine, The New Republic, Glamour, The Guardian, Nerve, Slate, and The Morning News, where she has been a contributing writer for more than a decade. Her past jobs include: Travel columnist, music editor, film critic, sex blogger, and for about 15 seconds in the late ’90s, she taught high school English. She lives in East Dallas, where she enjoys playing her guitar poorly and listening to the “Xanadu” soundtrack.
Her memoir, “Blackout,” will be published by Grand Central on June 23, 2015. It was recently named one of the most anticipated upcoming memoirs by Publishers Weekly. You can contact her at sarahhepola@gmail.com. (Please send Salon story submissions to shepola@salon.com).
Her memoir, “Blackout,” will be published by Grand Central on June 23, 2015. It was recently named one of the most anticipated upcoming memoirs by Publishers Weekly. You can contact her at sarahhepola@gmail.com. (Please send Salon story submissions to shepola@salon.com).
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This book made me sad. It reminded me of the sad choices people make trying to find love and the lies we tell ourselves when we don't find it. A lot of us have been there in various ways. That's why I was surprised I didn't like this memoir.
The subject is an excellent choice for a memoir, but the telling falls flat. I didn't really connect with the author because I didn't really ever feel what was at stake for her, even though I knew it very well. I didn't see much self reflection and the ending seemed rushed. I just didn't feel as if she was being honest with her reader or taking accountability throughout the book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher. I received an advance review copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
The subject is an excellent choice for a memoir, but the telling falls flat. I didn't really connect with the author because I didn't really ever feel what was at stake for her, even though I knew it very well. I didn't see much self reflection and the ending seemed rushed. I just didn't feel as if she was being honest with her reader or taking accountability throughout the book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher. I received an advance review copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
From the author of Blackout, Sarah Hepola explores the romantic relationships that defined her midlife after her years-long struggle to become sober. With honesty, relatability, and vulnerability, she examines her solo path into midlife through patches of promise and fulfilling but fraught romantic entanglements with married men, unavailable men, and perhaps much-too-young men. She grapples with what it means to search for a long-term partner through your childbearing years, through the years when it seems everyone around you is partnering up, and through the highs and lows of a career.
I fell in love with Hepola’s candid storytelling and the emotional vulnerability she brings to every page. She’s a storyteller you can trust, weaving nuance, humor, and heartbreak throughout the book. You find yourself questioning her choices, rooting for her, and understanding the ambiguity all at once. Her stories don’t have desperate flair to them; they’re so relatable, even to a happily married mom of three like myself. Yet I saw myself in her struggles—in the way she embraced wholehearted love, evaluated risk, yet often chose abandon, and more often than not chose to live even when the future was uncertain or scary.
How many of us have loved someone we knew we ought not to? So much of what we want is control, and Hepola shows us how to live instead. Her internal transformation is soft-spoken and gradual; there’s no one-day wake-up call. It’s an everyday battle to live your best life, love yourself and those around you, and keep going even when none of it is how you imagined it would turn out.
Highly recommend. Thank you #NetGalley for the ARC!
I fell in love with Hepola’s candid storytelling and the emotional vulnerability she brings to every page. She’s a storyteller you can trust, weaving nuance, humor, and heartbreak throughout the book. You find yourself questioning her choices, rooting for her, and understanding the ambiguity all at once. Her stories don’t have desperate flair to them; they’re so relatable, even to a happily married mom of three like myself. Yet I saw myself in her struggles—in the way she embraced wholehearted love, evaluated risk, yet often chose abandon, and more often than not chose to live even when the future was uncertain or scary.
How many of us have loved someone we knew we ought not to? So much of what we want is control, and Hepola shows us how to live instead. Her internal transformation is soft-spoken and gradual; there’s no one-day wake-up call. It’s an everyday battle to live your best life, love yourself and those around you, and keep going even when none of it is how you imagined it would turn out.
Highly recommend. Thank you #NetGalley for the ARC!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
“The Only Thing There Is to Want” is a literary memoir by author Sarah Hepola. The writing is a little more stylistic than your typical memoir. I imagine this will appeal to some readers and slow others down.
Sarah Hepola looks back on three defining loves of her 30s and 40s. Men who forced her to reckon with the relationship patterns left staring her in the face once she got sober. Love one is a married man. Love two is a much younger man who is a situationship she’s trying to will into something more. (Honestly, it’s a little wild that he gets a full third of the book given how few times they actually meet in person.) Love three is a detective she’s hot and heavy with for a stretch, and then returns to later on, considering giving him a second chance.
Hepola isn’t always easy to root for. Her choices are sometimes baffling. But you keep turning pages anyway, hoping she’s going to get it together. She sort of does. There’s no tidy happy ending, but there is something like growth. Maybe?
This reminded me of one of my favorite non-celebrity memoirs, “Group.” Same energy — an unreliable narrator of her own life, making decisions you don’t understand, somehow keeping you riveted anyway.
Recommended for fans of “Group,” fans of literary memoirs, and readers with patience for a character who makes genuinely baffling choices.
PS: Thank you to NetGalley and The Dial Press for providing me with an Advanced Reading Copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own!
Sarah Hepola looks back on three defining loves of her 30s and 40s. Men who forced her to reckon with the relationship patterns left staring her in the face once she got sober. Love one is a married man. Love two is a much younger man who is a situationship she’s trying to will into something more. (Honestly, it’s a little wild that he gets a full third of the book given how few times they actually meet in person.) Love three is a detective she’s hot and heavy with for a stretch, and then returns to later on, considering giving him a second chance.
Hepola isn’t always easy to root for. Her choices are sometimes baffling. But you keep turning pages anyway, hoping she’s going to get it together. She sort of does. There’s no tidy happy ending, but there is something like growth. Maybe?
This reminded me of one of my favorite non-celebrity memoirs, “Group.” Same energy — an unreliable narrator of her own life, making decisions you don’t understand, somehow keeping you riveted anyway.
Recommended for fans of “Group,” fans of literary memoirs, and readers with patience for a character who makes genuinely baffling choices.
PS: Thank you to NetGalley and The Dial Press for providing me with an Advanced Reading Copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own!
Review of advance copy
2.75 Rounded up. Story of a professional woman looking for a male partner. Story describes her frustration in finding available partners, especially as she ages and achieves career success. She makes numerous mistakes in choosing potential partners. Her life is full of disappointments in these endeavors. The book describes three of her most prominent experiences, each of which ends in disappointment for the book's protagonist. The book is interesting but sad and disappointing. Do not recommend.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
Will absolutely be gifting the paperback ARC I won of this memoir in a Goodreads Giveaway to a friend of mine who is still searching for her person, as it was great! Very relatable and easy to read, full of lessons and heart and hard-earned reflection. Sarah comes across as down to earth and thoughtful, which goes a long way! Recommend to folks broadly and notably people as perplexed by the complexities of love as I continuously am.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
thanks Netgalley for ARC
great writing job about how to be unmarried and childless. at the expense of being a couple, this writer choose to be single with hookups until the magic of hookups lost some of its charm. not for lack of trying has this writer attempted to become a couple. first with a long distance detective, then a married man, and finally a growing boy. frightening how life can be shaped by want.
great writing job about how to be unmarried and childless. at the expense of being a couple, this writer choose to be single with hookups until the magic of hookups lost some of its charm. not for lack of trying has this writer attempted to become a couple. first with a long distance detective, then a married man, and finally a growing boy. frightening how life can be shaped by want.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I received a free copy of, The Only Thing There Is to Want, by Sarah Hepola, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I dont read book about people having affairs, we dont have the same morals or values.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thanks to Dial Press and NetGalley for the ARC!
Rewatching Girls and reading this book at the same time was like a parallel universe!
Rewatching Girls and reading this book at the same time was like a parallel universe!
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July 31, 2026Amazing writing, most annotated book of 2026
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September 10, 2026RTC
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I always love a good memoir, at first I didn’t think this one was for me..only to find myself hooked. This memoir reminds us all that our choices and experiences somehow help us achieve a life.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews