Please Validate My Existence: Essays & Stories From a Twentysomething Pseudo-Intellectual

by Jessica Manuszak

Welcome to your guidebook for living a life that doesn't make you want to throw up a partially-digested corn dog into the nearest public park trashcan. A manual for making the best of squeezing dogs' anal glands for minimum wage. And a huge, heaping handful of reassurance when you're ready to smack yourself and/or the nearest passerby with a raw fish because you don't know what you're doing, where you're headed, or what in the hell you actually want.**Besides a night in bed with a young Tom Selleck lookalike. Let's be honest.Think of it as having a life coach in your corner (and on your coffee table), assuming you like your life coaches like you like your soaked in liquor and perpetually spewing profanities. Peg legs, sadly, are not included.Part essays, part stories & all soul, Please Validate My Existence is one twenty-something's take on what it means to approach life much in the same way you approach a game of with alarming amounts of determination and a thick wad of fake paper money stuffed down the front of your pants.Jessica Manuszak is the shouty mastermind behind the no-holds-barred Brazen Bible blog, a bustling hub on the internet for the dreamers. The doers. The occasional day-drinkers. And anyone who wants MORE out of life.Because in case you haven't heard?You only get one.

Genres: Memoir

196 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 10, 2015

About the author

OH, HAI! I’m Jessica. See also: a rebel with a cause. And also lots of cardigans.

After graduating near the top of my class with a BA in English, I found myself caught in the midst of my own particular brand of the quarter-life crisis. After flitting between a plethora of terrible careers, pouring dark beer in my Cocoa Dyno-Bites, and crying about how I COULD NEVER BE HAPPY EVER AGAIN, I methodically (and sometimes drunkenly) devised strategies, hacks, and tricks to become the most awesome, productive, happy version of myself possible.

When I’m not being overzealous, crafting all the things, or eating too much goat cheese, I can be found sleeping with the lights on after marathoning shows about ghosts. Sometimes I’m a Ramblebot 5000, and sometimes I jump into rivers with extreme reckless abandon, but mostly I just turn every tea into an iced tea and deeply envy people with impressive real and/or fake moustaches.

At the end each day, I just want to know that I’ve done everything in my power to feel completely and intensely fulfilled. Except for sacrificing goats and stuff. That shit crosses a line.

Adventure with me?

Reviews

[Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve put off finishing this book for months, reading and rereading the essays as a special treat. However, after finally finishing this book, I wanted to do it justice by leaving a review. Jessica’s ability to point out the absurdity in our shared experiences, big and small, habitually relatable and far from any realm of possibility for me, brought me lots of laughs. Her vulnerability and candor allowed me to reflect on my own life with curiosity and humor rather than judgement. Reading these essays challenged me to shift my perspective, find the light in seemingly dark places, or at least grin a little bit to myself when realizing the ludicrousness of the world.

[Valorie Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jessica Manuszak's collection of essays is equal parts hysterically funny and disturbingly insightful. The stories she tells about her own life feel like she is reaching into your soul and showing you the bits and pieces we're all made of. I tore through this book when it first came out, and two years later it's one I'm still happily recommending to friends and lovers of personal essay collections.

"They" say the personal essay is dying, but "they" are wrong. Pick up this book--you won't regret it.