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I'll Tell You in Person
Flailing in jobs, failing at love, getting addicted and un-addicted to people, food, and drugs—I'll Tell You in Person is a disarmingly frank account of attempts at adulthood and all the less than perfect ways we get there. Caldwell has an unsparing knack for looking within and reporting back what's really there, rather than what she'd like you to see.
208 pages, Paperback
First published October 4, 2016
229 people are currently reading
10263 people want to read
About the author
Chloé Caldwell
12 books796 followersChloé Caldwell is the author of the national bestseller, WOMEN (Harper Perennial, 2024).
Her book TRYING will be published by Graywolf Press on August 5th, 2025.
She is also the author of the essay collections I'll Tell You in Person, Legs Get Led Astray, and the memoir The Red Zone: A Love Story.
Chloe's work has been published in The New York Times, Bon Appétit, The Cut, Vogue, and many anthologies, including SLUTS, Without a Net, and Goodbye To All That.
Chloe teaches creative nonfiction online and hosts retreats and offers writing support at scrappyliterary.com.
Her book TRYING will be published by Graywolf Press on August 5th, 2025.
She is also the author of the essay collections I'll Tell You in Person, Legs Get Led Astray, and the memoir The Red Zone: A Love Story.
Chloe's work has been published in The New York Times, Bon Appétit, The Cut, Vogue, and many anthologies, including SLUTS, Without a Net, and Goodbye To All That.
Chloe teaches creative nonfiction online and hosts retreats and offers writing support at scrappyliterary.com.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 299 reviews
July 29, 2016
Never thought I'd miss being young, broke, and trying to find my way through this world, but damn does Caldwell make it all seem really romantic and wonderful.
February 14, 2017
I don't like most personal essays because they don't feel personal enough. They skip right over the shit I actually care about. Or they have no point at all. These essays were interesting, funny, and personal - like long emails from a really close friend. It's not just a bunch of Now I'm Going To Tell You About the Time I Did Something Foolish in My 20s that Only My Mother and Perhaps My Therapist Will Give a Shit About (And the Latter Only Because I Pay Her But It's On a Sliding Scale Because I'm Poor Just Like You). There IS some of that though - but she pulls it off beautifully. I never once thought, "Oh my god, would you please shut the fuck up." Which is pretty much all I ever think with these things. Most of the time, I was actually thinking, "Wow, I can't believe I like this! I'm liking something! Hooray."
May 20, 2019
When I was in college, a common question posed to me by my creative nonfiction professor during our writing workshops was, "Why did you write this? What are you trying to say?" I felt myself asking these questions during the majority of "I'll Tell You in Person."
Caldwell's essays are well-written and have a strong voice. Her essays about struggling with her sexuality were particularly effective, and really capture how Caldwell lives her life: no labels, free as a bird, "why not?" attitude. But there's no reflection on her experiences. Her drug-filled benders, high school struggles, and hitchhiking traipses across Europe are told in an "Oops, silly me!" or "Look how unique and quirky I am!" voice, with no comments on how these experiences changed her or why she chose to write about them. It seems Caldwell found it more important to name drop the bars she'd been to in New York ("New York's hottest club right now is..."), brag about celebrities she's hung out with ("Look how cool I am, Lena Dunham ghosted me!"), and talk about how afraid she is of getting fat (in an increasingly desperate tone that really rubs me the wrong way as a chubby person), than offer any meaningful take-away messages. If the author doesn't care about her life and why she's chosen certain paths, then why should her readers?
Caldwell's essays are well-written and have a strong voice. Her essays about struggling with her sexuality were particularly effective, and really capture how Caldwell lives her life: no labels, free as a bird, "why not?" attitude. But there's no reflection on her experiences. Her drug-filled benders, high school struggles, and hitchhiking traipses across Europe are told in an "Oops, silly me!" or "Look how unique and quirky I am!" voice, with no comments on how these experiences changed her or why she chose to write about them. It seems Caldwell found it more important to name drop the bars she'd been to in New York ("New York's hottest club right now is..."), brag about celebrities she's hung out with ("Look how cool I am, Lena Dunham ghosted me!"), and talk about how afraid she is of getting fat (in an increasingly desperate tone that really rubs me the wrong way as a chubby person), than offer any meaningful take-away messages. If the author doesn't care about her life and why she's chosen certain paths, then why should her readers?
November 19, 2016
"I'll Tell You in Person" is a perfect title for this quirky and fascinating book, is also a selection of Emily Books which specializes in publishing, sales, and the promotion of women's writing. Author Chloe Caldwell, now 30, recalled the decade of her 20's in these intimate confessional essays. In starting and stopping both college and various jobs, she worked in a jewelry store as a top salesperson, was befriended by a popular celebrity, visited and stayed with her brother in Berlin, and much more.
On Martha's Vineyard, Caldwell participated in a writing residency workshop-- though it wasn't clear if she was a teacher or student. There are many quotes from other writers that have inspired her own work, some of it seemed clichéd. Caldwell certainly has her critics, she has been accused of writing TMI. It is unsettling that anyone can google her name and read the online details she has openly divulged about her sex life. In embarrassment and shame, she has warned family members not to read parts of her books. Confessional writing often goes in that direction, and it is just as easy for readers to appreciate her truth, genuine honesty, and sense of humor.
* From the book... "Non-fiction tastes best with a bottle of Charles Shaw Cabernet!"... However, Caldwell is just as quick to remind her readers, despite making some very bad decisions while drinking (in her 20's) she no longer drinks alcohol. With a writer friend they discussed the subject of "crazy stories"-- that is, compelling stories that will be good and interesting in print. Unlike some of her friends, Caldwell explained she hasn't gone skydiving, been divorced, donated eggs, cut her wrists, and never had cancer or a baby. Instead, she wrote about sleeping on the floor at Penn Station, with no other place to go or stay when her ex-boyfriend didn't accept her call. * From the book... "As the cliché goes, I've always counted on either dying young or never dying at all. I've displaced my enormous anxiety onto dogs, electrical outlets, Mack trucks running me over, and, apparently essay collections."....
Caldwell's best writing wasn't about her inspiration from the essays of Miki Howland, but rather her friendship with NYC novelist Maggie Estep, who passed away February 13, 2014. "I'll Tell You in Person" is Caldwell's fourth book. ~ With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.
On Martha's Vineyard, Caldwell participated in a writing residency workshop-- though it wasn't clear if she was a teacher or student. There are many quotes from other writers that have inspired her own work, some of it seemed clichéd. Caldwell certainly has her critics, she has been accused of writing TMI. It is unsettling that anyone can google her name and read the online details she has openly divulged about her sex life. In embarrassment and shame, she has warned family members not to read parts of her books. Confessional writing often goes in that direction, and it is just as easy for readers to appreciate her truth, genuine honesty, and sense of humor.
* From the book... "Non-fiction tastes best with a bottle of Charles Shaw Cabernet!"... However, Caldwell is just as quick to remind her readers, despite making some very bad decisions while drinking (in her 20's) she no longer drinks alcohol. With a writer friend they discussed the subject of "crazy stories"-- that is, compelling stories that will be good and interesting in print. Unlike some of her friends, Caldwell explained she hasn't gone skydiving, been divorced, donated eggs, cut her wrists, and never had cancer or a baby. Instead, she wrote about sleeping on the floor at Penn Station, with no other place to go or stay when her ex-boyfriend didn't accept her call. * From the book... "As the cliché goes, I've always counted on either dying young or never dying at all. I've displaced my enormous anxiety onto dogs, electrical outlets, Mack trucks running me over, and, apparently essay collections."....
Caldwell's best writing wasn't about her inspiration from the essays of Miki Howland, but rather her friendship with NYC novelist Maggie Estep, who passed away February 13, 2014. "I'll Tell You in Person" is Caldwell's fourth book. ~ With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.
June 30, 2018
Rating: 2.5
I feel bad rating this so low. It kept my attention, and Caldwell is a decent writer, but after so many stories about being wasted and/or high, having sex, and generally indulging in the wild side of youth . . . I guess I just wonder what the point of it all is? What am I supposed to gain from this? I’m not a woman in my late 20s (obviously), so maybe it’s just an inability to identify and to see romance in recklessness where others do. The writing isn’t good enough—or potent enough in its observation—to make this worthwhile, and the stories alone aren’t so interesting either. Much of it feels like a more polished blog post. That said, there are a couple of good essays here, specifically the ones about kicking a heroin addiction and the author’s friendship with Maggie Estep. I really enjoyed those.
I feel bad rating this so low. It kept my attention, and Caldwell is a decent writer, but after so many stories about being wasted and/or high, having sex, and generally indulging in the wild side of youth . . . I guess I just wonder what the point of it all is? What am I supposed to gain from this? I’m not a woman in my late 20s (obviously), so maybe it’s just an inability to identify and to see romance in recklessness where others do. The writing isn’t good enough—or potent enough in its observation—to make this worthwhile, and the stories alone aren’t so interesting either. Much of it feels like a more polished blog post. That said, there are a couple of good essays here, specifically the ones about kicking a heroin addiction and the author’s friendship with Maggie Estep. I really enjoyed those.
November 16, 2016
Relatable and a quick read, I finished it in one night. I confess I don't understand all the rave reviews here on Goodreads; I wouldn't call it a series of essays so much as a collection of anecdotes - competently written, granted, but so self-focused that I felt it was a little self-indulgent; name-dropping and reminiscing for the author's sake. It read more like journal entries for Chloe to come back to in her 40s and 50s. It didn't have a larger thematic import. I understand the essays are meant to be a portrait of adolescence and young adulthood, a series of sketches reflecting the confusion of figuring out your identity, the difficulty of struggling to find a sense of belonging. I didn't expect her to reach any sort of conclusion but I wanted some more wisdom, more observations and insights, I suppose, less narrative.
June 1, 2017
I can't believe I read this whole horrible book.
April 10, 2017
I think I read this at the exact point in my life that I needed it. I devoured this book and cried a lot and felt like I was less alone for a while. Thank you, Chloe.
September 23, 2016
So fun to read these essays. Chloe Caldwell has a knack for picking out the minute details of a life that give the greater themes of her essays life and color. This feels like the older-sister companion to her first collection of essays, "Legs Get Led Astray" (which is funny, since I read the first in my earlier 20s and am reading this now, at 28) and is extremely relatable (except it sounds like Chloe's been to way cooler parties than me). Felt like getting a series of eloquent emails from a friend.
September 6, 2022
"I'm wearing camouflage shorts and black-and-gold Nike sneakers. I am lying on the floor with my legs over my backpack. My arm is over my face. My sneakers smelled. But I was almost home. I was getting closer to knowing what that meant."
This one is a comfort for the people floundering in their 20's and not knowing how else to live. It's nostalgic and sad and hilarious. Thank you, Chloe :) I hope this book finds me again one day
This one is a comfort for the people floundering in their 20's and not knowing how else to live. It's nostalgic and sad and hilarious. Thank you, Chloe :) I hope this book finds me again one day
February 20, 2017
Two of the highest compliments I can give to a book are that they make me write, and that I recognize pieces of myself in a story about a person who is quite different from me.This book did both.
Caldwell is funny, and has lived a life that is both quite ordinary and altogether memorable at the same time. About essays her Dad declares, "All essay collections should be called the same thing 'Feel Sorry For Me: I Fucked Up Eighteen Times and I'm About To Do It Again" and appropriately sometimes I thought things couldn't get worse for Caldwell, and then naturally they did, but with a lot of wise reflection strewn along in the wake of it.
Not every essay was memorable to me, but Caldwell's personality is not one I'll forget. My favorite essays were, "Failing Singing", "Sisterless", "The Music and the Boys", and "The Girls of My Youth" but I think different ones will connect with different people, and all of them connected with me on some level.
Caldwell is funny, and has lived a life that is both quite ordinary and altogether memorable at the same time. About essays her Dad declares, "All essay collections should be called the same thing 'Feel Sorry For Me: I Fucked Up Eighteen Times and I'm About To Do It Again" and appropriately sometimes I thought things couldn't get worse for Caldwell, and then naturally they did, but with a lot of wise reflection strewn along in the wake of it.
Not every essay was memorable to me, but Caldwell's personality is not one I'll forget. My favorite essays were, "Failing Singing", "Sisterless", "The Music and the Boys", and "The Girls of My Youth" but I think different ones will connect with different people, and all of them connected with me on some level.
September 23, 2016
"I’m also the type of person who gets mistaken for an employee no matter where I am: the Gap, a coffee shop, a bookstore, an Applebee’s. People come up to me and expect me to wait on them. 'I don’t work here,' I say. But I used to."
So much good stuff. Thought-provoking, fun, relatable. I could read these all day long.
A tad name-droppy at times but it doesn't spoil the 5-star rating.
So much good stuff. Thought-provoking, fun, relatable. I could read these all day long.
A tad name-droppy at times but it doesn't spoil the 5-star rating.
August 20, 2020
Read halfway and couldn't do it anymore. Sorry, Chloe.
March 5, 2018
Chloe Caldwell really knows how to get a reader invested in the story and then twist the knife! I was impressed with the casual hooks she'd use to make her story accessible and when it took a turn towards surprise or heartbreak I was still right there, feeling all the feelings I'm sure she wanted me to experience. I had a great time reading/learning about her and I look forward to more memoir/nonfiction in the future!
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December 18, 2022dnf @ 17% — i felt obligated to finish this essay collection for some reason but with my personal history with eating disorders and bulimia and the state of my mental health this year, i found the essays surrounding food to be personally triggering for me to read, and i feel that for my mental health and also my physical health it would be best if i dnf’ed this collection, as disappointing as that may be because i was so looking forward to this when i picked it up from my favorite local indie bookstore. the writing is wry and funny, and i did enjoy the first essay, in real life. but looking at my updates i wrote “i feel lukewarm so far but it’s only just the first essay so i’m going to keep an open mind” so maybe it’s just not meant for me to be the audience and that is totally valid! i am not going to give the book a rating as i do not feel i read enough of the collection to be able to do so. definitely look up the trigger warnings before delving into this book, as you may enjoy it and find it relatable if you don’t have the same triggers as i do! :))) hoping whomever picks up my copy from my local little free library ends up absolutely loving it !!!
my favorite quote: “the thing about your essays is, they’re always about you.”
my favorite quote: “the thing about your essays is, they’re always about you.”
October 10, 2020
People are different and have different kind of problems. I get that. And I'm usually interested in a lot of different experiences and in empathising with all kind of different lifes. But I'm probably just too old (and wise?) for this kind of annoying self centred stuff. You don't have real problems, if you are making them up yourself and then complain about them.
October 15, 2016
Full review to come.
July 27, 2024
I love this book of short stories from chloe Caldwell. I lost the book (at the beach?) about halfway through but one of my favorite stories is about her experience with cystic acne. She felt so horrible about her acne that she started using heroin, which in turn made her feel worse and made her skin worse. I feel a lot of acne sufferers can relate to breakout, but something to make yourself feel better about it (skincare or in this case drugs) and then feel worse cycle. It’s definitely a hard one to break!
July 22, 2025
chloe is one of the most important writers of this generation. i mean that with my whole chest. her writing is a masterclass in vulnerability and authenticity mixed with technique and craft. reading her essays is like having a late night conversation that winds deep into the early morning hours with a good friend that you don’t wanna stop chatting with.
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January 6, 2026Picked this up from Neta's shelf while visiting her in NYC and couldn't put it down. Later found out she found it for free in the street. I became hyperaware that this flu season is rampant and I was in the most populous city in the US, but so far so good.
This is a first for me, I have never read a book in this format (personal essays). I took comfort in the fact that we are all a little scratched and bruised from different phases of life, and we carry that forward.
This is a first for me, I have never read a book in this format (personal essays). I took comfort in the fact that we are all a little scratched and bruised from different phases of life, and we carry that forward.
January 3, 2024
fun listen !!
April 5, 2025
maybe my i'm not living my early 20s as wildly as i should be
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October 2, 2019I’ll Tell You in Person by Chloe Caldwell was a great personal essay collection for #storyseptember. @hayhails shared this one with me awhile ago, and I’m so glad I finally read it. These essays were entertaining and funny, while also feeling really reflective.
These essays are mostly about Caldwell’s life in her 20s, from working at a jewelry store, to babysitting for Cheryl Strayd’s kids, to her very difficult struggle with cystic acne. I especially loved the piece about her friendship with Maggie Estep.
These essays are definitely more anecdotal than critical - a very different type of collection than Trick Mirror, which I also just read. This collection reads more like a memoir. If you like personal essays and like reading about struggles of people in their 20s, I’d recommend this one!
These essays are mostly about Caldwell’s life in her 20s, from working at a jewelry store, to babysitting for Cheryl Strayd’s kids, to her very difficult struggle with cystic acne. I especially loved the piece about her friendship with Maggie Estep.
These essays are definitely more anecdotal than critical - a very different type of collection than Trick Mirror, which I also just read. This collection reads more like a memoir. If you like personal essays and like reading about struggles of people in their 20s, I’d recommend this one!
October 5, 2016
"I do not consider myself a political person. I never have been. A female author—I cannot remember who—once wrote something like, ‘I’m not political in my writing, why should I be? If you look at my life, I’m political in the way I live.’ It comforted me to no end. I do not watch the news. I read a little. I'm too sensitive for it and too dumb. But when I read that, I thought, Yeah! I don’t talk about women writers needing to be read, but I wrote a book that didn’t have any men in it without even noticing. Not tooting my own horn here, expressing my naïveté."
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June 1, 2017this book definitely sucked me in; I started reading it last night around 12:30 and finished it about twelve hours later. I was put off by all the adoration for Lena Dunham and the name-dropping and how she casually talks about her addiction to heroin made me feel uncomfortable for some reason. I guess I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy it because I think that I did but I feel like we are flooded with collections of personal essays and at some point they all start saying the same thing. yeah, your 20s are a really weird time but what hasn't been said about them already?
August 30, 2016
"We loved each other, but we loved ourselves more." What a short, sweet burst of choppy malaise, literal and figurative ecstasy, and making peace with the mundane. A great, quick read, full of heart. And drugs. But mostly heart.
October 2, 2017
The subject matter of this memoir just wasn't for me. It might have been written well, but I couldn't get past the content.
September 30, 2024
Fan helt genialisk. (!!)
February 20, 2020
Ok so. I picked up this book because Caldwell’s “Women” was mentioned in The L Word Gen Q and I wanted to read that but the library only had this one. Lolllll.
Chloe Caldwell is a white girl writing about the nostalgic trifecta of drugs, youth, and shitty choices. She mines her personal experiences and psyche with a blunt, witty, and entirely un-self-aware attitude that, if you have the patience for it, becomes surprisingly enjoyable and addictive to read. Consuming this book is the literary equivalent of watching the L Word—the old one. With the terrible politics and the self-involved lives. With more drugs and fewer glam storylines. And no Bette Porter.
Which is to say I loved hating Caldwell and hated loving her.
But, Caldwell has a fantastic eye for telling detail, writing in such a way that makes you feel a life lived. Friendship, bong hits, getting fucked up before public readings, wandering into apartments of men from Craigslist, gray-area heroin addiction, death, acne, Berlin. (What more could you want?) (SO MANY THINGS.) The thing is, Caldwell is savvy about her audience and the scope of her work; she knows what her notes are, and hits all of them—especially nostalgia—remarkably well. So if you want to turn off your brain, like, all the way off, and go for a romp with this extensively problematic #CarpeDiem white girl and her friend named Rain who probably had dreadlocks at some point and started her own drumming circle after she came home from hitchhiking in Europe, I guess go for it, stay safe, choose yr own adventure. (Michelle Tea describes the work as “controlled mania” and I couldn’t agree more.)
Otherwise avoid like the mfckn plague.
3/5 and maybe a good breakup book—I read it the week of my grandma‘s funeral and it made for a decent distraction.
Chloe Caldwell is a white girl writing about the nostalgic trifecta of drugs, youth, and shitty choices. She mines her personal experiences and psyche with a blunt, witty, and entirely un-self-aware attitude that, if you have the patience for it, becomes surprisingly enjoyable and addictive to read. Consuming this book is the literary equivalent of watching the L Word—the old one. With the terrible politics and the self-involved lives. With more drugs and fewer glam storylines. And no Bette Porter.
Which is to say I loved hating Caldwell and hated loving her.
But, Caldwell has a fantastic eye for telling detail, writing in such a way that makes you feel a life lived. Friendship, bong hits, getting fucked up before public readings, wandering into apartments of men from Craigslist, gray-area heroin addiction, death, acne, Berlin. (What more could you want?) (SO MANY THINGS.) The thing is, Caldwell is savvy about her audience and the scope of her work; she knows what her notes are, and hits all of them—especially nostalgia—remarkably well. So if you want to turn off your brain, like, all the way off, and go for a romp with this extensively problematic #CarpeDiem white girl and her friend named Rain who probably had dreadlocks at some point and started her own drumming circle after she came home from hitchhiking in Europe, I guess go for it, stay safe, choose yr own adventure. (Michelle Tea describes the work as “controlled mania” and I couldn’t agree more.)
Otherwise avoid like the mfckn plague.
3/5 and maybe a good breakup book—I read it the week of my grandma‘s funeral and it made for a decent distraction.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 299 reviews