You're Not Special: A (Sort-Of) Memoir

by Meghan Rienks

In her first-ever (sort of) memoir, the beloved actor and YouTube sensation gets personal about everything from mental health to drunken debaucheries.

As an only child raised in a town of less than 8,000 people and without a Starbucks in sight, Meghan Rienks has always been pretty good at entertaining herself. Then one day—cue the dramatic voiceover—her life changed forever.

On June 12th, 2010, Meghan was diagnosed with mononucleosis. Mono is basically just a really bad case of the flu, right? Wrong. To a party crazed 16-year-old, mono is social suicide. More than anything, it’s just plain boring. So, Meghan opened up her 2009 MacBook, used the webcam for something other than a bad Andy Warhol-style photobooth session, and recorded her first YouTube video. Since then, Meghan has shared the ups and downs of her life with the internet, documenting her teenage years for the whole world to see.

Now that she’s (mostly) through her awkward stage, Meghan’s here to tell you that it gets better. You’re not alone in the thoughts you think. Sometimes a bad hair day feels worse than a punch in the gut and asking a boy out seems about as difficult as achieving that perfect dewy glow. But despite what you’ve been told, your problems are not unique, your struggles have taken form in everybody else’s life too, and somebody else has felt the way you feel right at this very moment.

You’re not special. But you’re also not alone on the bumpy road to adulthood.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Audiobook, Biography, Biography Memoir, Self Help, Adult

288 pages, Hardcover

First published May 5, 2020

About the author

Meghan Rienks is an actress and the creator of her own wildly popular comedy and lifestyle YouTube channel. Meghan flexes her acting muscles (and sometimes her real muscles) in a number of series, including Freakish, 12 Deadly Days of Christmas, Mr. Student Body President, and in her first feature film, The Honor List. As a social media tastemaker, Meghan has been named one of Teen Vogue's Top 6 Instagram A-Listers and Allure's Instagram Influencer of the Year. She lives in Los Angeles.

(source: Amazon)

Reviews

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 but rounding up for the chapter on anxiety alone

i wanna start this off by saying advice/self help books aren't my thing as i find all of them to end up being at least a little bit cheesy/filled with advice that's fairly generic. 100% the reason i read this is because i love meghan and i have been following her for years. so the parts about her personal life, i loved and was super interested in. the advice parts however were kind of hit and miss. firstly, i feel like the target audience for this is definitely a younger demographic, so some of the advice fell into that generic category that younger people may not have heard yet. also, i don't know if this is something common for these types of books, but there were a lot of times where the book would reference something that we already have read about yet talk about it in more detail than it needed and other things that made it seem like skipping around was a thing? idk, as a mostly fiction/genre reader, that was strange to me, and it also felt like these repeated details were just taking up space that could've went to something else.

one piece of advice i really did enjoy though and will probably reference in the future is that for dating apps. i found it so fresh and current to our times. and as hinted at before, the whole chapter on anxiety meant everything to me, both reading meghan's personal accounts of it and the advice she gives on it.

overall, i enjoyed this. i would've preferred a more straight up memoir, but that's just my personal taste. if you're a fan of meghan, i think you'll enjoy this for the most part, especially the latter half. if you're a fan of meghan AND advice books, then this will probably be your shit.

[Anne - ReadingfortheWeekend · Rating 2 out of 5]

When the title of the book kind of sums up your review...

This “sort-of memoir” starts right out of the gate with wit, self deprecating humor, pop culture references and in your face realness- and I couldn’t get enough!

And I really couldn’t get enough because as soon as I was enjoying the book, it took a sharp turn and became a misdirected self help book.

Meghan Rienks is a YouTube influencer who I hadn’t heard of before and that’s fine because she doesn’t talk about that experience during the book. Instead she talks about her decision to either wear a one piece or a two piece bathing suit on the middle school beach day.

When I was reading the list on how to make a friend, I was expecting it to be sarcastic or riddled with mishaps from her life. But no....it was actually a step by step list on how to make friends. 🤷🏼‍♀️

It’s really unfortunate because I was truly enjoying this book before it decided to have this identity crisis and change paths.

Overall, this book was disappointing, disjointed and unfocused.

2 ⭐️

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars.

I really enjoyed this one! While I do wish it were more of a memoir than a self help book, I really enjoyed the memoir parts (and honestly would have given this a five star rating if it were all memoir), and I've been a fan of Reinks for awhile, so it was nice to see more into her personal life.

[Daniella · Rating 2 out of 5]

I LOVE megan. I have followed her podcast since it’s announcement over 2 years ago and I watch every single one of her YouTube videos. I’m the exact target audience of this book.
Wow this was extraordinarily basic. Everything discussed in this book has been covered by memoirs an exhausting amount of times: depression, anxiety, college parties, mean girls. Nothing stood out, seriously nothing. And to top it off it included the typical YouTuber book filler of Lists. Like a whole chapter of “top 50 worst things that can possibly happen to you” type of shit, like ten times over. This is an incredibly skipable book, very underwhelmed.

Edit: regarding Megan’s podcast Don’t Blame Me...wow what a good advice show. I would recommend it to everyone.

[Jessie Thornton · Rating 2 out of 5]

As per usual, Meghan appears to be grasping for attention and trying to stay relevant. I had extremely high hopes for her book, especially after being delayed for so long.
This book falls flat. The later half is the only part worth staying for. The beginning and middle of the book are nearly impossible to get through. She writes like she speaks, in circles and without a real point. The advice she offers is trivial and juvenile at best.
Like most things she seems to do, this book feels like she had a great idea, started it, and then got bored. Kind of like her Youtube channel, podcast, social media, acting, etc...everything is half assed.

[ellie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Surprisingly enjoyable, but should have been edited a bit more - her voice shines the most when she’s telling her stories than giving advice, which always gave off the air of a Refinery29 article.

“Your life has many great love stories. Some you leaf through casually, some you pick back up on a rainy day, and some you’ve packed up in boxes, never to touch again. One day you’ll pick your favorite story and you’ll read it until you don’t. Maybe it ends happily, maybe it ends on a cliff-hanger, or maybe it ends with a to-be-continued. You’re the one who has to write it.”

[Heather F · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first became aware of Meghan through her role in Oscar's Hotel. I knew she had a podcast, and I was curious to read this book. I found it a grave disappointment. I'd call it a low-rent Grace's Guide: The Art of Pretending to Be a Grown-up wanna-be, that leans too hard on being self-aware of her own privilege and status to be interesting or relatable. I would not give this to a younger person I knew, nor did I learn anything outstanding about her life. Also, she's a college drop-out, which makes her role model status questionable.

Thank you NetGalley for this early copy in exchange for my review.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

After being a viewer of Meghan’s in the past I thought it would be interesting to get some insight into her life. One thing that put me off from this book is how angrily it’s written. I get it, everyone goes through hardships and life sucks from time to time, but I’m not going to lie, it was hard reading about bitter privilege. Some chapters spoke to me more than others, but overall I was left feeling weird and uncomfortable. I will still continue to support her and her channel, but this book was just not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

[Kayla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of You're Not Special! Unfortunately this was a miss for me. I watched Meghan on YouTube back around 2012-2013, but slowly grew apart from her audience as she and myself evolved. I was really excited for an ARC of her book, and it started off really strong. Her humor is evident in the book, and she has reflected on her past in a way to make it relatable and gives the "you aren't alone/you're not special" vibe. It then started to feel like it was meant more for high school readers, but then at times it felt so adult maybe it would be too much for high school readers? Lots of mixed messages on who the audience was meant to be, which showed because a few chapters I really enjoyed and but most I could have done without.

[Carlynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Generic, trivial, sisterly advice for someone finishing high school/starting college, but at the same time has content I wouldn’t want a high schooler to read.

LOTS OF LISTS that are dumb and total page fillers (one was a list of over 100 ways to not breakup with someone? Can’t remember but it was over 100).

I know this was a “not-so memoir”, but it would have been better if it was a full-on memoir. The ONLY interesting portion was about her parents and meeting her significant other.

Was excited about this one (especially because it had a super delayed release), but it fell totally flat.

[Caroline Brink · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started reading You’re not Special back in June, put it down and forgot about it for about three months, and then finished it this week. It’s possible that this had an impact on my opinion of it?

I liked You’re Not Special, but I fear I was not the target audience. I think I would have liked it a lot more if I read it ten years ago.

This book was disjointed, all over the place, and often repetitive, which kinda reminded me of Matthew Perry’s memoir. This isn’t a bad thing, but I think I prefer memoirs with linear timelines, such as Betty Gilpin’s All the Women in my Brain. (Don’t get me wrong, I loved Matthew Perry’s memoir but that’s not what we’re talking about right now.)

Meghan’s voice is unique, witty and fun throughout. I really enjoyed the chapters where she wrote about her personal experiences, particularly the Depression and Family chapters. She kinda lost me with all the advice but again, I probably would have appreciated it had I read this book when I was 15.

I loved all of the pop culture references, particularly the Harry Potter references. It was chilling reading her fearless outrage regarding Tr*mp’s first presidency knowing now that he gets re-elected.

Above all, reading this made me want to write my own memoir. Not that anything that interesting has happened to me, but I just think writing a memoir would be fun.

[aya ‧₊˚✧ · Rating 3 out of 5]

meghan i love u but the references in this book aged horribly and I wish it was more memoir esque than self help-y

[Laurel Ann Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book, I didn't love it (granted I'm in my late 20's so not really in the target demographic). If you start this book out thinking it's too not interest, seriously SKIP AHEAD TO CHAPTER 21. It had me in tears.

Sidenote before I start, if you (and I say this two weeks short of receiving my masters degree, from a three year long full time program, I will update when I have received it) are judging Meghan as unworthy of being able to give advice because she dropped out of college, you seriously need to grow up. College doesn't make you better and in some cases, smarter, than anyone else. If I had a dime for every person I meet in my graduate, undergraduate, and random two years I took college classes just because whilst I worked, who gave bad advice and shouldn't be a role model I'd be a very very very rich woman. Same goes for everyone I have meet who doesn't have degree who is completely and totally worthy of being to give advice. People are a case by case basis and if you're being too lazy to evaluate everyone individually that's your own immaturity and you being a down right snob.

That being said. Some of the advice in this book just wasn't anything new. I do wish she had at some point in her self-love chapter used the term body neutrality (because I've heard her discuss it before and it is what she is talking about). As someone who had Anorexia, I think body neutrality needs to be talked about more. Also wished she had dropped the one insult she had about one of her ex's that is body shaming and based on patriarchal values (you'll see it when you see it). But come on Meghan, even if he's your ex, and you know better.

I think for me personally as someone with mommy-issues who has a learning disability that drastically altered their mental health (granted in some VERY different ways) that their parents also were told by someone from their school about them probably needing a diagnosis, but their parents ignored it, this book was very comforting. The anecdotal parts of this book were, to me, 20x's better than most of the advice (again not her target audience).

If you end up liking chapter 21, I'd STRONGLY recommend also reading, Never Broken by Jewel. Jewel's mom and Meghan's mom honestly sound like they could be sisters, definitely different situations, but very similar actions. It's also interesting comparing their perspectives on their experiences.

Final note, if you are like me and you like books to start with a heavier tone and end lighter. I'd start with chapter 21 and go backwards to chapter 1, then read chapter 22. I didn't read these chapters in order and was fine jumping around.

[Rissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Youre not special 3.5⭐️
This is Meghans life. Messy and boy crazed.
Meghans life is comedic and also a cautionary tale. When going through her stories, her life, you get to see all of her ups and downs and a lot of boys. Because I do you know the author via the Internet I enjoyed this more because I know her humor and sarcasm and was able to sort a picture of her just going through and telling the stories about her life.
She also give some pretty good advice on life and dating and staying alive.
The more I read the more I enjoyed the book I enjoyed her questionnaires and lists and insights it made me laugh. And getting a book to make me laugh out loud is really a nice thing.

Thank you to Gallery books via netgalley for sending me a copy of you’re not special by Meghan Rienks. Available on May 5 2020
All opinions are my own.

[Tina · Rating 1 out of 5]

"You're Not Special" is a great title ....and description of this review. I think when people try too hard, they over compensate and become unrelatable which is what I feel happened here. I detached from the book early on and just could not get back into wanting to read it... although I did finish it. I was intrigued because I watched a few of Meghan's early YouTube episodes and thought this book would be more lighthearted and fun to depict her life and struggles. I was not expecting more of a self-help gone bitter type of read.... hence the low star rating. I found this to be hard to read because of the language used and was hoping for something different I guess.

Thanks to NetGalley for my eARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

[Katie Comer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, and at first I did. However, somewhere about 50 pages in, things started to fall flat for me.

I know “You’re Not Special” is meant to be “your big sister” or “best friend”, but I find that it isn’t appropriate for either of those things. I felt I was too old to be reading this (we’re the same age), but I also would never put it in the hands of a younger me.

This is marketed as a “sort of” memoir, but let’s face it, it’s a memoir and I don’t think a twenty-something has any business giving advice to anyone. I would love to see her try again in many, many years.

I truly don’t know what kind of audience to recommend this too, meaning I can’t recommend it at all.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

You’re Not Special by Meghan Rienks is an awesome, down to earth memoir that was hilarious and kept me engaged from beginning to end. The book also had a slight advice by “don’t do what I did” and “ yeh you aren’t alone in that thought” kind of book as well.

I loved the charming yet snarky, funny yet serious tones that Meghan presented with her presentation. She lets us all know through her stories that: yeh no one is perfect, yes life sometimes sucks, yes we all will end up having go through bad stuff and guess what?......it is normal and OK. The biggest take home is that what makes a person is how they respond and move forward from adversities. That is what separates us. Bad things will happen to us that are sometimes beyond our control and it is what we do with that that defines us as a person and shapes our future. Meghan just wanted us to know (in a fun/playful way so as not to make us cry) that she went through that stuff too, and ypu are not alone. And it will be ok.

This book was so much fun. I really enjoyed reading all the ups and downs. Great pacing and layout. A quick and fabulous read.

5/5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I really liked this book but there were definitely some chapters that I enjoyed more than others, that could be because I connected with it more, needed to hear what was said or simply just enjoyed the writing. some of those were:
chapter 8 - toxic friendships
chapter 15: self love
chapter 19: depression
chapter 20: anxiety
chapter 21: finding your own family
chapter 22: finding love

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I waited so long to read this book! I'm so happy I finally got a chance to read it!

[Annie LeMasters · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really excited about this book as someone who's listened to Meghan's podcast for a long time. I expected it to be more of a memoir but it was mostly self-help advice that I didn't find particularly useful or interesting. As someone in my 20s, I think this book was a little too young for me, but when I was 15 or 16 I would've loved it. The memoir-ish parts are the best and are what kept my attention.

[Haileigh West · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you’re a fan of meghan in any capacity, i HIGHLY recommend reading this!!! this was the ultimate memoir/big sis/best friend advice book all rolled into one and it was fantastic all the way through!

[Ria · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. This book is not special. No need to read.

[Thea Boyne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! I’ve followed Meghan’s YouTube videos/content for probably 6 years now so I was super excited to hear that she wrote a book.

I appreciated Meghan’s candid and warm writing style; it felt like having a conversation with a friend and her personality shone through. I feel like I have a much deeper understanding of her as a person from reading this book.

Somehow, You’re Not Special was both very easy and engrossing to read, and funny, while also addressing several serious, personal topics—toxic parents, mental health issues, alcohol dependency. Meghan hits that balance of honesty and humor well.

One thing I didn’t really anticipate is that the book has a handful of self-help/advice chapters that I didn’t enjoy as much as the memoir/narrative sections, but maybe that’s just me. Personally, I love memoirs and couldn’t really relate/make use of much of the advice. I feel like the advice parts are tailored at a younger demographic (like high schoolers maybe?) while the memoir parts seemed more suited/tailored towards 20 somethings. A little disjointed but not a huge issue.

Overall, a good read.

[Adrienne | read.gram.repeat · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars- I used to watch Meghan Rienks on YouTube when I dabbled in “beauty blogging” ages ago so I thought I’d see what her book was all about.

I almost DNF’ed during the first half because the chapters about dating and friends seem childish and pointless or are just about her being drunk. She also mentions being assaulted, but totally grazes over the subject. With that said, I did like the second half much better because it felt more like a memoir than satirical advice.

She’s self-deprecating and may not be “special” as her title suggests, but she did get a book deal because of her fame and really doesn’t explain a lot about her YouTube or acting careers. I think this book is geared toward her younger fan base and doesn’t do anything to gain her new fans so I’d only recommend it if you follow her.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this advanced copy before its release.

[Isabell Einarsson Nygårds · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. I've been folowing Meghan for A long time now and to get the chance to get to know her on a diffrent level was amazing. I like how peronal she gets and for me it's like having a big sister telling you about life as I'm a only child and at 22 years old I still dont know anything about life.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very list heavy. Meghan does admit to liking lists and this book is proof of that. The second half of this is better than the first. I don’t usually feel my age, but as someone in her mid-thirties, I can confidently admit I am too old for the “big sister life advice” bits. Most of this ended up being purely background noise.

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Meghan and this memoir/self-help book. Super honest and genuine and her voice really comes through.

[sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyed the audiobook a surprising amount actually

[Joann 'bartunek' prashek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm over twice Meghan's age so I had to google some of the acronyms she used, as well as some of the people she referred to. I will definitely recommend the book to my grand nieces.

[Jillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dear Joaquin and Megan,

Oops another book I picked up where I left off ! Anyways love Meghan always a slay

Cheers,
Jillian