The Misfit's Manifesto

by Lidia Yuknavitch

A self-defined misfit makes a powerful case for not fitting in—for recognizing the beauty, and difficulty, in forging an original path.

A misfit is a person who missed fitting in, a person who fits in badly, or this: a person who is poorly adapted to new situations and environments. It’s a shameful word, a word no one typically tries to own. Until now.

Lidia Yuknavitch is a proud misfit. That wasn’t always the case. It took Lidia a long time to not simply accept, but appreciate, her misfit status. Having flunked out of college twice (and maybe even a third time that she’s not going to tell you about), with two epic divorces under her belt, an episode of rehab for drug use, and two stints in jail, she felt like she would never fit in. She was a hopeless misfit. She’d failed as daughter, wife, mother, scholar—and yet the dream of being a writer was stuck like “a small sad stone” in her throat.

The feeling of not fitting in is universal. The Misfit’s Manifesto is for misfits around the world—the rebels, the eccentrics, the oddballs, and anyone who has ever felt like she was messing up. It’s Lidia’s love letter to all those who can’t ever seem to find the “right” path. She won’t tell you how to stop being a misfit—quite the opposite. In her charming, poetic, funny, and frank style, Lidia will reveal why being a misfit is not something to overcome, but something to embrace. Lidia also encourages her fellow misfits not to be afraid of pursuing goals, how to stand up, how to ask for the things they want most. Misfits belong in the room, too, she reminds us, even if their path to that room is bumpy and winding. An important idea that transcends all cultures and countries, this book has created a brave and compassionate community for misfits, a place where everyone can belong.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays, Self Help, Audiobook, Psychology, Biography

149 pages, Hardcover

First published October 24, 2017

About the author

Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of the National Bestselling novels The Book of Joan and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Award's Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the Reader's Choice Award, and the novel Dora: A Headcase, Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice. Her nonfiction book based on her TED Talk, The Misfit's Manifesto, is forthcoming from TED Books.

She founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She lives in Oregon with her husband Andy Mingo and their renaissance man son, Miles. She is a very good swimmer.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

"When did we forget that we are not the stories we tell ourselves?"

I admire Lidia Yuknavitch: for her honesty, her brilliance, her resilience and for her genius way of writing. Having just finished The Chronology of Water I couldn't not read this. This book does exactly what it says on the tin: It is a manifesto for/ about misfits. Lidia Yuknavitch uses her own experience as well as the experiences of fellow misfits to paint a picture of what being a misfit can mean and what we all can learn from them. She makes a powerful statement on the importance of art and of channeling pain into something greater. She shows how she has found a place in the world, after many many a detour. She shows how her weaknesses can be her strength and the place where beautiful art develops.

I think, the main problem for me was that I read it so shortly after the masterpiece that was The Chronology of Water. That book just blew my mind and there was no way a book that is essentially the longform of a TED talk to even come close to its structural brilliance. She also rehashes a lot of that book but in way that creates a narrative - and I thought the strength of her other book was that she did not do that. She told of her life in fragmented, poem-like chapters. This narrative created afterwards feels somehow less true to life.

Still, she can spin beautiful sentences like hardly anybody else and her voice and viewpoint is an important one. I adore that she ultimately arrived in a place of strength and how she uses that strength to try and make the world a better one.

First sentences: "Misfit. Trust me when I say there is a lot packed into that little word."

_____
I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review.

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly enjoyed this book, had a lot of good things to say and was very relatable at times. Good Book to listen to on my journey to find and get myself

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cried in public reading this book. Unbelievably moving and powerful, especially if you've ever felt like a social outsider.

[Graeme · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would normally avoid the Self-Obsession genre, but I picked this book up at the library because it was small and quick to read toward my Goodreads Challenge goal, and it was published by TED.

Short as it is, it is an epic of self-pity, with some suggestion that Ms. Yuknavitch experienced a catharsis by having overcome terrible setbacks, most of which seem to have been of her own making. A blurb on the front cover from Kirkus Reviews describes it as, "A beautifully written field guide to being weird." She does indeed write well, but the words misfit and weird are what will attract the intended audience. She never effectively defines what misfits are, despite fencing off the territory with mental illness, addiction, abuse, sexual excess, childhood suffering, and being unattractive (Bodies that Don't Fit); it feels like a rock festival for professional victims and survivors.

Ms. Yuknavitch includes testimonials from a number of her friends:

I first met my brilliant and beautiful friend Melissa Febos on the page when I read her memoir Whip Smart, in which she describes the four years she worked as a dominatrix in a Midtown dungeon. She described that part of her life as a "hell of her own making," as well as her experiences as a high school dropout and her drug and alcohol use. Let me tell you, her story is one of the most bold and clear expressions of the human condition I have ever clapped eyes on. Later in life when I met her in person, I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that our body stories made a helix of sorts.

Ah, the human condition in the dungeon.

Ms. Febos, in her excerpt, says:

Which is to say, being a misfit and incapable of conforming to social norms was painful, it was incontrovertible, and it forced me to find my truest calling, which has been so profound and that I would not trade for any better kind of fit. I was a strange and secretive child who buried things in the backyard, was aware of my queerness very young, and I read books with the same voracity that I shot heroin. My mother was a bisexual, feminist, Buddhist psychotherapist who raised me vegetarian and corrected the sexism of my children's books with Sharpie, and my father was a Puerto Rican sea captain. I say all this to make the point that there was no getting around it: I was different; we were different.

No doubt about being different, but if you look deeper aren't we all? I was imagining the monthly meeting of a fictional Misfits Club with the members playing Can You Top This? Early in the book, Ms. Yuknavitch lays out her qualifications:

Up until that moment, all I was was a survivor. I'd survived my father's abuse, two divorces, flunking out of college, addiction, rehab, and incarceration. And, as noted, I'd lost most of my marbles when my daughter died, and I'd spent some time living under an overpass in a great altered state of megagrief and loss.

And there are many more details of dangerous extremes. She even regrets, in this seemingly endless litany of self-pity, that she could escape addiction (presumably a demerit at the Club):

I'll say it bald: I'm your garden-variety functional addict with the annoying ability to kick. My clean and sober brothers and sisters are rolling their eyes right now.

Not so much eye-rolling as simulated puking, I think.

Ms. Yuknavitch remarks on the talents of a few misfit friends. She mentions that two people spent nineteen days tending to her every need as she detoxed from heroin, and how her sister got into the shower with her, fully clothed, to comfort her after the death of her baby. She mentions her mother's courage in going on family hikes in considerable pain because one of her legs was six inches shorter than the other. But she seldom expresses that she loves and appreciates people for the good and kindness they did, but rather a focused resentment for what some of them did to her. Others scarcely exist in this account of I, my, me, and mine, unless they are fellow misfits.

Another Goodreads reviewer had similar sentiments to mine about the book, but noted that he held back because he didn't want to be mean. My reaction was different. I remember a time in my own younger life when I was filled with self-pity and resentment. I was attracted to narratives that made me feel justified. But wise, mature, and caring members of my family and friends showed me that self-pity is the most egregious of sins. I moved on because I began to care more for others, and in so doing my self-pity evaporated. That is a common experience, and one of Ms. Yuknavitch's friends mentions it too. Because the people, often young and very vulnerable, who see themselves as misfits and freaks might read reviews on Goodreads, I want them to hear a different view.

[Marianna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very difficult review to write. Lidia Yuknavitch is a good writer and a wonderful storyteller. Her sharing of her personal traumas in life was touching and emotional. I really appreciated her effort of personal sharing in order to reach out to others who may be in need - those who need to know they are not alone. Likewise, her friends who shared their stories, I give a standing ovation to. It is very difficult to talk about your own skeletons and to open up old wounds. I get that.... Soooooo..... my critique of this book is not an attack on Lidia or her friends, rather, it is a critique of the book as it appealed or not to me and my situation and understanding.

First, The Misfit's Manifesto is not a manifesto... it is a collection of stories and assumptions based on personal experiences (or so that is what was portrayed). There was little to no affective evidence - scientific or otherwise - to the claims laid out in this book. While I understand what the word "misfit" means, I cannot agree that all misfits are usually a result of abuse or difficult family lives as is clearly repeated in this book again and again. Additionally, people - regardless of age - can "misfit" for difference reasons and in different situations. One size does NOT fit all in this case. There seemed to have been a lot of claims that I just could not agree with. Each story seemed to be focused on more drug abuse, getting involved in sexual or alcoholic abuse, and self inflicted pain. This is NOT true for all misfits. I happen to know a few myself and they are very different from the assumptions made within these pages.

I must say that I listened to this book via Audio Recording... perhaps I would have ended up with a different impression had I actually read the book instead of listening to it; however, it is what it is.... Again, I mean NO disrespect to the beautiful people who shared their stories. I enjoyed and appreciated their strength in sharing and opening up about their struggles... However, as Narrators to a recording some of them should not have read their own parts. Some of the readers did not have clear diction, making it very difficult for me to understand what they were reading. I rewound certain sections 4, 5 times and still could not understand what was being read so I gave up and moved ahead. This is terrible for an audio book where your hearing and listening abilities are your only means of obtaining the story that is being portrayed.

Another point that was made over and over again is that misfits need a form of artistic outlet in order to find peace or healing. Perhaps this is true, but perhaps it is not. There were no hard facts to support this idea and/or theory. This type of over generalization happened again and again within the pages of this novel and, quiet frankly, it pissed me off. I'm a firm believer that if you are going to make claims, then back them up wth scientific data and facts. I found almost non within these pages.

As a novel that shares stories of troubled adults and their extremely difficult and abusive youths, it is amazing and really amazing to read to gain insight into other people's lives. As a "manifesto" - um, yeah - NO... that would be a solid no from me.

I'm sorry if I have offended anyone as that was definitely not my intention.

Happy Reading and Enjoy!

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful. Special. A marvel. This is my first encounter with reading Yuknavitch and I'd definitely like to read more. It's such a pean to the power of expression and the necessity of embracing yourself whole.

One quote for posterity:
"We have to keep telling our stories, giving them to each other, or they will eat us alive."

[Marianna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn’t actually read, more scanned. Was just too rambling for me.

[Cassie ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up. Very interesting perspectives and stories.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found ‘The Misfit’s Manifesto’ in the library catalogue while searching for Lidia Yuknavitch’s novel The Book of Joan. It’s a short book based on a TED talk, which I haven’t seen. In it, Yuknavitch describes the nature of being a misfit: an outcast from society, usually as a consequence of past traumas. She argues that those who cannot fit into ‘normal’ social roles should embrace their misfit status and that non-misfits should offer empathy rather than mere sympathy. She recounts her own tragedies and those of her friends, with the lessons that recovery from trauma comes through solidarity with fellow outcasts and making art. I found this slightly uplifting, but mostly sad. The subtext is that America crushes its most vulnerable people, leaving them homeless, ill, and/or addicted. In some countries (sadly not the UK so much anymore), more support would be available to help misfits survive. Yuknavitch suggests that we should all be aware that ‘there but for the grace of god go I’, which is true, however it shouldn’t be this way! Neoliberal capitalism has ensured our insecurity, as only the richest aren’t always a few bits of bad luck away from destitution. That’s not the point of the book, which focuses on the individual and makes a very good point about empathy, but it kept nagging at me as I read.

[Andy Pronti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lidia Yuknavitch gets me! A great little book, based on her incredible TED talk. Lidia teaches us that there are other misfits out there (more than you would think), and that we all have a story to tell. You are the only one who can tell "your" story. Lidia also introduces us to other misfit authors that I'll definitely have to look into. A great read! Highly recommended!

[Crystal Fawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never had a book written so specifically to me, like a love letter. 10⭐s wouldn't be enough. Have to start reading this atleast once annually.

[Book Z Tobą · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Josefine · Rating 5 out of 5]

"My hope is that by contributing a tiny piece of my story to the larger world of stories, I can help us hear and see all these stories differently."

Lidia Yuknavitch wrote a book about misfits, but rather than relying on her own narrative, she includes those of others. Constantly aware of her own privilege as a white cis woman (blond and conventionally attractive at that), relativizing her own misfit status against that of others who don't have that sort of privilege, she offers up their voices alongside her own. Not just retelling their stories, but letting them speak for themselves, speak of their own experience in their own words.

There are differences in gender, sexual orientation, and race, but there are always connecting strands between these people, all of them misfits who are still grappling with their personal history, but who have managed to channel the creative energy created by a life on the edge of society, by an existence in the margins, by not quite fitting in. Their stories are of abuse and suffering, addiction and recovery, of bodies that will not be tamed into conforming.

She speaks of her own experience, too, including events of her life which she wrote about in far more detail in her memoir, The Chronology of Water, but writes about them here by specifically putting them into the context of her creativity; showing how they all became portals for her. But there is no romanticizing of oddities, failures and mistakes: instead, she speaks her truth, and speaks it against the wide-spread monomyth of the Hero's Journey, crushing the concept of "suffering makes you stronger".

Despite having read her autobiography a while ago, on which much of The Misfit's Manifesto relies, it never felt like mere rehashing of facts. Raising up other voices who may not get the chance to be heard without the amplification Yuknavitch provides, she creates something entirely new, something encouraging and beautiful.

[Two Readers in Love · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Similarly, I took the grant money and bought a car. I'd already been stealing one steak a week from Safeway to get some protein in my body, so when I saw money, my survival instincts won out." - Lidia Yuknavitch, p. 58, The Misfits Manifesto

A *steak* a *week*? Seriously?

I lost faith with the narrator after that sentence.

[Castles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very different from what I thought it would be, somewhat depressing, and very American oriented. Still, it’s a touching message for a lot of suffering people out there, and I won’t talk down on that.

[Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Within this book we have a misfit of an author.
She had walked through darkness more than anyone would wish and been through loss, her voice flows with empathy and lucidity, omitting all sorts of needless words in a work of one memorable misfit and other misfits legacies full of needed words and needed people in this place called earth.
Unconventionality and the misfit, with all the heartfelt struggles and tragedies coupled with inspirational lines of advice, getting back up, onward and helping others, feel counted and endure.
Many voices of misfittery telling their misfit realm, nine not including the author, they are those of Jason, Sean, Mary, Jordan, Domi, Zach, Melissa, Althea, and Melanie.
Essential necessary reading that will stay with you and have you prisoner for one sitting from beginning to end that wouldn’t take more than 2-3 hours the most.

Review with excerpts @ https://more2read.com/review/misfits-manifesto-lidia-yuknavitch/

[Hanieh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5
It was short and I listened to it on audio on the bus today.
The writing is pretty average but I found the stories very relatable. I mean at some point we've all been there, feeling like an odd one out, in a group or a place. And as someone who has been always struggling with that this felt was a nice little hug coming from another soul who gets that and shares their own experience without judgement. So yeah it felt nice to read it( well listen technically but you know what I mean.)


P.s. I just keep reading little books to postpone finishing my other current reads because 'm enjoying them too much.

[Rosie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.25

[Boroush · Rating 4 out of 5]

The perfect book to close out 2025.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based off the TED Talk “The Beauty of Being a Misfit”, this Portland, Oregon author shares stories about how “misfits” overcome obstacles and succeed.

I particularly liked the back story about Dolly from the Island of Misfit Toys in the classic Rudolph story.

[Cara Devine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is beautiful - I found it very moving.

[Daryle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is told through the lens of misfits who have experienced abuse, trauma, or profound suffering, though I don't believe you HAVE to have suffered to be a misfit. Sometimes we just have an "inability to fit in comfortably" to use the author's words.

I love this author! She tells her own story here which is filled with pain but she comes out a brilliant teller of stories. I love that she is based in Portland, where I call home. I always say that Portland is where you can go to fit in when you don't fit in anywhere else.

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short book based on a TED talk. It's very interesting, and wrought unexpectedly strong emotions. I may not have suffered the same kinds of depths many of Yuknavitch's misfits have, but just the same I identify with the concept of not fully belonging in the world. This is in no way comprehensive, but it's a beginning.

[Jacky Torrisi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seriously, just read the description and save yourself the time and effort of reading the book.

This book was, for me, so mind-numbingly repetitive and boring. It was so hard to get through because I felt as though the same few lines kept getting repeated throughout the 140 pages. Perhaps I expected something completely different going into this book (I randomly picked it at the library). With the title and quote on the cover (“A beautifully written field guide to being weird.”), I expected less talk about personal sufferings and more emphasis on the beauty of uniqueness.

The book is basically set up so that the author gives a brief lecture style talk about her life experiences and sufferings before introducing an author and essay about how that person sees themself as a misfit. Lidia Yuknavitch’s articles are so repetitive — constantly addressing her father’s abuse, her two failed marriages, addiction, DUI, and her stillborn child. Maybe I’m being cold, but after hearing these things over and over they start to seem less important or tragic to me. I wasn’t picking this up expecting to read her memoir, which she has actually written one and which admittedly would probably be more interesting than this collection of essays.

The features by the other writers (most likely students in her creative writing class) in this book mostly seemed without much substance with the exception of an essay here and there. I felt contradicted at times because the very premise of the book is about misfits, or people who don’t fit in. Yet so many times the word misfit was defined so broadly as to include the majority of the population. Most of this book was not well written. Perhaps if I had read this after watching her TED talk, I could have appreciated it more. There were heartfelt and meaningful ideas and sentences once in a while, but for all of the content in this book, the valuable parts are few and far between.


My general rating criteria:

1. Was it entertaining? No
2. Did you learn or take anything of value from it? Small chunks of valuable ideas, but mostly a bunch of rambling repetitive BS.
3. Was it well written? At times but mostly no.
4. Would you read it again? No. It was hard enough to get through once.

[Theresa Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a lovely book! Honest, moving and detailed about what it means to be a misfit, and how that might actually be a good thing. I’d never really thought of it that way before and I enjoy the idea of embracing that part of yourself, of accepting the quirkiness of who you are, the damaged parts, the baggage that you carry with you, always. I think everyone to a degree feels that at times they don’t fit in, or that they are in some way a misfit. I can tell you growing up in poverty in NW Portland in the late sixties and early seventies as the 7th of 9 children in a family of 11 people was incredibly challenging for me personally and so feeling like a misfit is not unfamiliar territory. I don’t think any of us Griffin kids ever felt we fit in for so many reasons, despite being raised by two college educated parents who read literature, listened to classical music, and corrected our grammar and English. It’s nice to read about other people, Lidia Yuknavitch, who have experienced their own challenges feeling like a misfit, and the pain, loss and frustration her life circumstances created for her when she was much younger. The brutal honesty of the book is so valuable. In one section Yuknavitch writes, “The story of me is one about a kid growing up in a place where conformity is rewarded. As much as I wanted to “fit in,” it was my choice to say no in trying to conform, because it was too painful. So was it really a choice? Sometimes I think if I had tried harder to fit in, I might actually be dead.” I can relate to that so much. My bizarre and wonderful childhood filled with terror and wonder created a deep well of bottomless sadness, and when it became unbearable in my 20s I wanted to end my life. This is a lovely book that is also very pretty to look at. The artwork is gorgeous, the abstract paintings the images are based on are absolutely beautiful and I like how small and compact the book is, small enough to fit into a jacket pocket, also with a really nice dust jacket. It’s a visceral pleasure to hold and read the book, turning it over in your hands, smelling the fresh new paper. This is a book that will go into my permanent collection.

[Melanie H · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating: 2.75 stars

While I appreciate Yuknavitch's honesty about her failures and even admire her ability to persevere despite it all, this short manifesto seemed more like a drawn-out therapy session writ large.

I agree with her assertion that we're not the stories we (as in the collective we of society) tell ourselves and that we need more empathy, especially for the homeless and downtrodden. But the book just seemed repetitive and the first-person stories she shares from her fellow misfits are just another, different form of the hero cycle, but a cycle nonetheless.

That being said, there is one big idea that will likely stick with me: that addiction is the obvious result of late capitalism. As we hunger for more likes and inundate each other with status updates and vacation photos, the difference between the junkie on the street and the middle-class, middle-aged clock watcher becomes less noticeable by the minute. Sayeth I as I write this book review on Goodreads for all my followers to see ...

[Richard Franco · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick but powerful read. This is the first book that I have read in a long time that deeply resonated with me on a very personal level. A book written by and for people that don't fit into the regular "normal" mode of life, getting from A to B, who perceive the world differently and have had to forge their own path to where they are. Often misunderstood and/or labeled as odd, different or worse these people all have a different story to tell that off the beaten path of the typical personal narrative that exists in our world. I can see that people may read this book and not understand it the way a misfit would and not like it, but for someone that always feels out of place, doesn't fit in and often has to act ways that are not normal them to get through the day which leads to a feeling of being fake, it is important to know we are really not alone in our journey.

[Andrea McDowell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd read two of her novels previously and loved them, so when a friend posted the TED talk this book is based on on FB, I ordered a copy right away.

I loved it; my daughter read it and loved it, so much that she asked for her own copy to scribble notes in.

I didn't love everything about it. A lot of us go through a lot and become misfit-ized without inflicting so much pain on other people in the process, which was not reflected in most of the stories in the book. But overall, if you're going through life with the nagging sense that if you don't fit in there's something wrong with you, you should fix that so you can fit in, this can offer a much-needed contrary view.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was initially attracted to this book for it's title and as a panacea to all the self help books out there that are squeaky clean. There are a few interesting concept here, but this is mostly an extremely subjective tale of one person's journey through abuse, pain and self-discovery. Verging, but not quite entering, the realm of the self-indulgent, it was interesting. I would save the money and watch her TED talk :)

[CanadianReader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not too impressed with this book, largely because I disliked Yuknavitch’s loose, imprecise writing. This piece could’ve and should’ve undergone some major surgery before publication. The material would have worked far better as a brief essay. I had a vague suspicion that there might be kernels of good ideas in here, but they are stated so lazily and muddily, it was hard to discern them.