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Sex and the Single Woman: 24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown's Cult Classic
This fresh, voice-driven feminist anthology reimagines Helen Gurley Brown's seminal work Sex and the Single Girl in time for its 60th anniversary, featuring twenty-four essays from acclaimed and bestselling authors, including Kristen Arnett, Morgan Parker, Evette Dionne, and Melissa Febos.
In May 1962, Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl sent shockwaves through the United States, selling more than two million copies in three weeks. The future Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief's book promoted the message that a woman's needs, ambition, and success during her single years could actually take precedence over the search for a husband.
While much of Brown's advice is outdated and even offensive by today's standards, her central message remains relevant. In this exceptional anthology, Eliza Smith and Haley Swanson bring together insights from many of today's leading feminist thinkers and writers to pay homage to Brown's original work and reinterpret it for a new generation. These contributors provide a much-needed reckoning while addressing today's central issues, from contraception and abortion (topics the publisher banned from the original) to queer and trans womanhood, racial double standards, dating with disabilities, sexual consent, singlehood by choice, single parenting, and more.
Written for today's women, this revisionist anthology honors Brown's irreverent spirit just as it celebrates and validates women's sexual lives and individual eras of singlehood, encouraging us all to reclaim joy where it's so often been denied.
In May 1962, Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl sent shockwaves through the United States, selling more than two million copies in three weeks. The future Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief's book promoted the message that a woman's needs, ambition, and success during her single years could actually take precedence over the search for a husband.
While much of Brown's advice is outdated and even offensive by today's standards, her central message remains relevant. In this exceptional anthology, Eliza Smith and Haley Swanson bring together insights from many of today's leading feminist thinkers and writers to pay homage to Brown's original work and reinterpret it for a new generation. These contributors provide a much-needed reckoning while addressing today's central issues, from contraception and abortion (topics the publisher banned from the original) to queer and trans womanhood, racial double standards, dating with disabilities, sexual consent, singlehood by choice, single parenting, and more.
Written for today's women, this revisionist anthology honors Brown's irreverent spirit just as it celebrates and validates women's sexual lives and individual eras of singlehood, encouraging us all to reclaim joy where it's so often been denied.
272 pages, Paperback
First published May 17, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
December 23, 2022
Helen Gurley Brown’s proto-feminist, how-to classic, Sex and the Single Girl came screaming into existence in 1962. So did I. That means that both of us, that book/this body, will turn 60 this year. Trust me when I say this, neither of us has aged well.
I won’t go into the details of how homophobic, fat phobic and horrifically racist Brown’s book actually is (there’s a link to THAT review at the end of THIS review). But I will say that those who rated it five stars either A) never read it, or B) don’t remember the details of it, or C) are horrible, horrible people.
That said, this 2022 reimagining of Brown’s shallow homage to skinny, privileged, heterosexual, white women is a breath of rarified air. Herein are twenty-four essays from all those demographics that Brown either minimized, dismissed, insulted or completely ignored.
If your life doesn’t revolve around the plasticine imagery of ‘Housewife Gazette,’ or you weigh more than 8 stones (112 lbs), or your skin tone is something other than alabaster, or you happen to prefer the company of same sex housemates—read this [Sex and the Single Woman] and skip that [Sex and the Single Girl].
_________________________________
A few of my favorite quotes
“”You need to look glamorous every minute,” writes Helen Gurley Brown, in a siren song from beyond the grave. I’m sure wherever she is now, she’s perfectly turned out: face spackled with Max Factor Pan-Cake makeup, wig sleek and glossy, Chanel suit tailored close to the bone, hunger pangs ignored, even in the afterlife.” ~Briallen Hopper (pg 116)
“Once, I dated a Pentecostal white guy. He said it was crucial that I was baptized again with only the name of Jesus. Not the trinity, or I wouldn’t get into heaven. He performed my second baptism, pushing me under the water, and then a few days later we f**ked in a sh*tty motel room near the interstate.” ~Tiana Clark (pg 170)
“Sex workers aren’t killed because sex work is inherently dangerous. A culture of shame and violent policing is what makes sex work dangerous. If a client had decided to rape me or force me to do things I didn’t permit, he would likely face no consequences. Because reporting it to the police would mean I would be arrested, or worse, assaulted again—by the police.” ~Xoài Pham (pg 206)
“I don’t know if I sleep better when I’m alone, but when I’m alone, I’m free to sleep poorly.” ~Seema Reza (pg 217)
__________________________________
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I won’t go into the details of how homophobic, fat phobic and horrifically racist Brown’s book actually is (there’s a link to THAT review at the end of THIS review). But I will say that those who rated it five stars either A) never read it, or B) don’t remember the details of it, or C) are horrible, horrible people.
That said, this 2022 reimagining of Brown’s shallow homage to skinny, privileged, heterosexual, white women is a breath of rarified air. Herein are twenty-four essays from all those demographics that Brown either minimized, dismissed, insulted or completely ignored.
If your life doesn’t revolve around the plasticine imagery of ‘Housewife Gazette,’ or you weigh more than 8 stones (112 lbs), or your skin tone is something other than alabaster, or you happen to prefer the company of same sex housemates—read this [Sex and the Single Woman] and skip that [Sex and the Single Girl].
_________________________________
A few of my favorite quotes
“”You need to look glamorous every minute,” writes Helen Gurley Brown, in a siren song from beyond the grave. I’m sure wherever she is now, she’s perfectly turned out: face spackled with Max Factor Pan-Cake makeup, wig sleek and glossy, Chanel suit tailored close to the bone, hunger pangs ignored, even in the afterlife.” ~Briallen Hopper (pg 116)
“Once, I dated a Pentecostal white guy. He said it was crucial that I was baptized again with only the name of Jesus. Not the trinity, or I wouldn’t get into heaven. He performed my second baptism, pushing me under the water, and then a few days later we f**ked in a sh*tty motel room near the interstate.” ~Tiana Clark (pg 170)
“Sex workers aren’t killed because sex work is inherently dangerous. A culture of shame and violent policing is what makes sex work dangerous. If a client had decided to rape me or force me to do things I didn’t permit, he would likely face no consequences. Because reporting it to the police would mean I would be arrested, or worse, assaulted again—by the police.” ~Xoài Pham (pg 206)
“I don’t know if I sleep better when I’m alone, but when I’m alone, I’m free to sleep poorly.” ~Seema Reza (pg 217)
__________________________________
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
July 20, 2024
I have not read Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl, but I thought this would be a interesting collection as I assumed that it would discuss the topics of a.) being single and b.) sex while single, with all of the messiness, nuance, and emotionality that those topics require. However, for the most part, these essays were in remembrance of prior singlehood, told with a "Thank god that's over" tone. I liked getting to hear the stories of my millennial elders, but for a collection that was written almost explicitly for a woman like me, I rarely felt my thoughts and feelings reflected in this work. Even the essays that were written to celebrate less traditional desires and outcomes were tied up with a nice little bow at the end, which is never true to life, and it's especially not true for these topics.
The two white lady editors were clearly trying to do their due diligence when it came to diversity. There were a lot of black writers, a trans writer, queer writers, a disabled writer, one Latina writer, a couple of Asian writers, and even one writer in her sixties. It was interesting to learn how these identities influenced the authors' experiences of love/sex/etc., but it seemed strange that there wasn't a single writer in their twenties, a gross omission in a work written for people in their twenties. Including more writers who were still wading through the muck probably would've helped limit the paternalistic tone (I know it's bizarre to call something this commercially feminist paternalistic, but that's how it felt.)
There just didn't seem to be any interrogation as to what all of this means for the collective, for us, for Gen Z, as we follow in millenials' footsteps. Each essay was, "This is my story. Here's how this aspect of my identity has affected my life," or, "This is what makes my experience unique." In this sense, I really felt that this collection missed the mark. There were no questions, no answers, no maybes, no what ifs, no I wonders, just I, I, I, I, I.
Still, I kept reading. And sometimes, despite my complaints, there was an essay I worth remembering. Specifically:
"Big Second-Wife Energy" by Minda Honey, because it wasn't pretty and it reminded me of this statistic, "Just 15% of previously married women want to remarry."
"The Greatest Pleasure" by Xoài Pham, for this line: "I didn't know that everything I feared would live right beside everything I would come to love." She's referring to sex work specifically, but I think the sentiment can be applied elsewhere.
"If I'm Lonely" by Vanessa Friedman, because it was nice, while floating in the ocean, to remember that feeling lonely is 1000x better than feeling suffocated.
"Apartment" by Seema Reza; at last, something relatable.
The two white lady editors were clearly trying to do their due diligence when it came to diversity. There were a lot of black writers, a trans writer, queer writers, a disabled writer, one Latina writer, a couple of Asian writers, and even one writer in her sixties. It was interesting to learn how these identities influenced the authors' experiences of love/sex/etc., but it seemed strange that there wasn't a single writer in their twenties, a gross omission in a work written for people in their twenties. Including more writers who were still wading through the muck probably would've helped limit the paternalistic tone (I know it's bizarre to call something this commercially feminist paternalistic, but that's how it felt.)
There just didn't seem to be any interrogation as to what all of this means for the collective, for us, for Gen Z, as we follow in millenials' footsteps. Each essay was, "This is my story. Here's how this aspect of my identity has affected my life," or, "This is what makes my experience unique." In this sense, I really felt that this collection missed the mark. There were no questions, no answers, no maybes, no what ifs, no I wonders, just I, I, I, I, I.
Still, I kept reading. And sometimes, despite my complaints, there was an essay I worth remembering. Specifically:
"Big Second-Wife Energy" by Minda Honey, because it wasn't pretty and it reminded me of this statistic, "Just 15% of previously married women want to remarry."
"The Greatest Pleasure" by Xoài Pham, for this line: "I didn't know that everything I feared would live right beside everything I would come to love." She's referring to sex work specifically, but I think the sentiment can be applied elsewhere.
"If I'm Lonely" by Vanessa Friedman, because it was nice, while floating in the ocean, to remember that feeling lonely is 1000x better than feeling suffocated.
"Apartment" by Seema Reza; at last, something relatable.
July 26, 2023
3.5 stars. Thank you to Net Galley and Harper Perennial for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. I enjoyed the different take of the classic (for it's 60th anniversary) which now a bit outdated. This version has updated the title rightly from using the word "girl" to "woman". The authors were quite diverse and their stories ranged from topics such as sex, abortion, singlehood, single parenting, sexual consent, contraception, etc. Some refer to the original material; others discuss a related topic. I was expecting more advice such as the original but the title did note that it was a reimagining. Good stuff all the same.
January 23, 2024
I really enjoyed this book! I was not expecting how raw and beautiful some essays would be. Some of my favorites were: Party of One, Once a White Guy, Are You Having Sex?, Self Help, and Loved Out Loud. I’m excited to read more from each of the writers involved in this anthology piece.
May 21, 2022
Firstly, thank you @harperperennial for sending me this ARC.
This book shares some powerful essays from 24 writers. It shares topics that Helen Gurley Brown wouldn't/couldn't talk about. This book was an informative and shared story that these authors went through and it was truly special to hear their stories.
Overall, this book did a great job of talking about the outdated ways that Helen tried to advertise. Although this book had great chapters, some did get lost with following/tieing together with the topic. This book can definitely be worth a read!
This book shares some powerful essays from 24 writers. It shares topics that Helen Gurley Brown wouldn't/couldn't talk about. This book was an informative and shared story that these authors went through and it was truly special to hear their stories.
Overall, this book did a great job of talking about the outdated ways that Helen tried to advertise. Although this book had great chapters, some did get lost with following/tieing together with the topic. This book can definitely be worth a read!
September 8, 2022
you love to see a feminist book that acknowledges and highlights the complexities/fluidity of gender & sexuality + the intersections of race & socioeconomic status
May 28, 2023
This was okay! A few essays that I quite liked (notably, Apartment by Seema Reza) but mostly I felt neutral about them. I didn’t feel a really strong unifying theme between the different essays, and I felt I had read more interesting writing on the same concepts elsewhere. Maybe I would have a stronger reaction if I had read the original?
May 19, 2022
Hmmm. So I’m really conflicted about this collection. As with all essays collections, I definitely liked some entries more than others. And since this was written by multiple authors, even more so.
My main problem with this was that the majority of it didn’t necessarily feel ~on topic? In some ways I would’ve almost rather read the original?? I know it’s incredibly outdated (and problematic) but from its description in this book, I feel like it is much more the celebration of singleton I was expecting.
At times this also felt like it's mainly meant to be a criticism of the original work. The first few essays, in particular, seemed to focus mainly on what was wrong with the original book (instead of providing ~updated information). Which. It was written in the 60s. Obviously things have changed??? I would've rather had more updated information than just harping on everything that the original book didn't cover...
“And married people always think love is the answer.” That’s mostly what it felt like this collection was expressing?? The vast majority of these essays were personal stories about how the writer met their spouse.
So I really felt like Miss Trunchbull while reading this and wondering why all of these women are married. Because that’s not what this collection said it would be? I was looking for stories about how you felt fulfilled while single, not how miserable you were until you were married.
(I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with marriage; but don’t have the word single in the title and then only talk about being married?)
So. Don’t get me wrong. There were still a few absolutely *EXCELLENT* essays in this collection (which is why I settled on three stars for this book even though I didn't like the vast majority of it). But unfortunately they were mostly overshadowed by the ones that didn’t really fit the topic.
I did particularly enjoy one essay on consent that I feel deserves its own shoutout. It's the stories that were truly about life being single that really drew me in and those are the ones I enjoyed the most. (So the ones that actually fit the topic.)
But overall, I just didn’t enjoy this. It didn’t really feel like the groundbreaking, revolutionary work that the original evidently was. This just felt like the same regurgitated information that you can already find all over the internet. There wasn't really anything new offered here and this isn't a book I'll ever be returning to. So. A miss for me, unfortunately.
Thanks to Harper Perennial for sending this my way in exchange for an honest review.
My main problem with this was that the majority of it didn’t necessarily feel ~on topic? In some ways I would’ve almost rather read the original?? I know it’s incredibly outdated (and problematic) but from its description in this book, I feel like it is much more the celebration of singleton I was expecting.
At times this also felt like it's mainly meant to be a criticism of the original work. The first few essays, in particular, seemed to focus mainly on what was wrong with the original book (instead of providing ~updated information). Which. It was written in the 60s. Obviously things have changed??? I would've rather had more updated information than just harping on everything that the original book didn't cover...
“And married people always think love is the answer.” That’s mostly what it felt like this collection was expressing?? The vast majority of these essays were personal stories about how the writer met their spouse.
So I really felt like Miss Trunchbull while reading this and wondering why all of these women are married. Because that’s not what this collection said it would be? I was looking for stories about how you felt fulfilled while single, not how miserable you were until you were married.
(I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with marriage; but don’t have the word single in the title and then only talk about being married?)
So. Don’t get me wrong. There were still a few absolutely *EXCELLENT* essays in this collection (which is why I settled on three stars for this book even though I didn't like the vast majority of it). But unfortunately they were mostly overshadowed by the ones that didn’t really fit the topic.
I did particularly enjoy one essay on consent that I feel deserves its own shoutout. It's the stories that were truly about life being single that really drew me in and those are the ones I enjoyed the most. (So the ones that actually fit the topic.)
But overall, I just didn’t enjoy this. It didn’t really feel like the groundbreaking, revolutionary work that the original evidently was. This just felt like the same regurgitated information that you can already find all over the internet. There wasn't really anything new offered here and this isn't a book I'll ever be returning to. So. A miss for me, unfortunately.
Thanks to Harper Perennial for sending this my way in exchange for an honest review.
July 18, 2022
"I can't be my full self with any of the options in my contact list; I'm never as soft or caring as I really am because I don't want them to mistake human decency for feelings. It's not that I'm lying; I simply don't want to be misunderstood--and too often, men think far too highly of themselves. I don't want a scrub thinking I've fallen for him just because I asked about his day."
Truth serum with lots of laughs and even more heart.
Truth serum with lots of laughs and even more heart.
July 7, 2022
this made me want to die like seventeen times while reading it. i read self-help by morgan parker as an article online and bought the rest of the collection with hopes of more essays like it. a new kind of heroine (laura bogart), girl meets purity culture (giaae kwon), apartment (seema reza), and when a man isn’t a man (samantha allen) were my other favorites from the collection. they obviously resonated the most with me but i also felt they were in a lot of cases the essays without easy answers. some of the essays tied up their questions and loose ends a little too neatly for my tastes but they probably resonate with other people. a common thread throughout was the essayists evoking visions of singlehood that they found or didn’t find in books, movies, people around them—a vision and a model for what they wanted their lives to look like—and i wouldn’t be surprised if this book/essays inside ended up being that vision for a lot of people. to talk about loneliness and long-term singleness is so stigmatized and i was impressed by the ones that dug deep on that
July 27, 2024
I think being single is more fun and more powerful than this collection of stories ultimately portrays it as being. All of the writing is great, but I wish these folks were having a better time! The single people I know are having less existential crises than these authors. I also thought friendship and family relationships were very underrepresented here as important parts of being single.
February 27, 2025
My real rating is 2.5 but I don’t think you can give half stars on here.
I think this book is confused about what it is. Even though I haven’t read the original source material, I feel like this “updated” version struggles to stay on theme. In a collection of essays I expected to be about the empowerment of being single/life without men, the majority of essays were about men, relationships with men and wanting to be with a man. This could’ve just bedb a book of essays about being a woman and they different ways they deal with men. I can’t really understand the “single woman” framing of this book. Also, each essay was give or take 10 pages. That was not nearly enough time for the stories to develop and a lot of essays felts rushed, didn’t really make much sense/seemed pointless (no offence) or were skippable altogether.
But this book did get 2.5 stars because there were a handful of GREAT essays and I’ll be looking up more works by these authors!! My standouts were:
In Pursuit of Brown-on-Brown Love by Jennifer Chowdhury (this was the best one)
Are You Having Sex? By Natalie Lima
The Animal Within the Animal by Melissa Febos (shoutout queen luv u)
Apartment by Seema Reza
I think this book is confused about what it is. Even though I haven’t read the original source material, I feel like this “updated” version struggles to stay on theme. In a collection of essays I expected to be about the empowerment of being single/life without men, the majority of essays were about men, relationships with men and wanting to be with a man. This could’ve just bedb a book of essays about being a woman and they different ways they deal with men. I can’t really understand the “single woman” framing of this book. Also, each essay was give or take 10 pages. That was not nearly enough time for the stories to develop and a lot of essays felts rushed, didn’t really make much sense/seemed pointless (no offence) or were skippable altogether.
But this book did get 2.5 stars because there were a handful of GREAT essays and I’ll be looking up more works by these authors!! My standouts were:
In Pursuit of Brown-on-Brown Love by Jennifer Chowdhury (this was the best one)
Are You Having Sex? By Natalie Lima
The Animal Within the Animal by Melissa Febos (shoutout queen luv u)
Apartment by Seema Reza
May 19, 2022
“60 years ago, Helen Gurley Brown wrote Sex and the Single Girl, setting off shock waves, selling more than 2 million copies in 3 weeks. Her message was radical for its time: marriage was not essential for women to lead rich, meaningful lives.”
Fast forward to today, and things have changed drastically. This book features 24, incredibly written pieces, from a diverse group of individuals on what it really means to live a rich and meaningful life today. Everything from IVF, celibacy, menstruation, consent, sex work, and queer and trans womanhood; every piece has something you can take from it.
You don’t have to have read the original book to read this one; this book is independent and highlights SO MUCH GOOD STUFF.
An essential read for everyone - no matter how you identify, what your relationship status is, what your career is. Just read it.
Thank you @bibliolifestyle and @harperperennial for this book. I will cherish it for a long time.
Fast forward to today, and things have changed drastically. This book features 24, incredibly written pieces, from a diverse group of individuals on what it really means to live a rich and meaningful life today. Everything from IVF, celibacy, menstruation, consent, sex work, and queer and trans womanhood; every piece has something you can take from it.
You don’t have to have read the original book to read this one; this book is independent and highlights SO MUCH GOOD STUFF.
An essential read for everyone - no matter how you identify, what your relationship status is, what your career is. Just read it.
Thank you @bibliolifestyle and @harperperennial for this book. I will cherish it for a long time.
June 6, 2022
Thank you to harperperennial for sending me this book. #gifted
This book contains so much depth within its pages. To go into a little background; in 1962, Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the single girl was published. Even though I have not read it, it is said that it contains some outdated advice which would be considered offensive by today’s standards.
In contrast, Sex and the Single Woman brings insights into the lives of different individuals. Women and Non-gender conforming individuals from highly diverse backgrounds, from all walks of life reimagines Brown’s classic. At the same time, this feminist anthropology brings the stories of those many women, 24 to be exact, into light. This has an amazing collection of stories about a vast range of topics that revolve around womanhood, such as contraception, abortion, queer and trans womanhood, polyamory, celibacy, interracial dating, bodies of all kinds, consent, sex work, IVF and the pop culture that both saves and fails us. I learned so much while reading this. I FELT SEEN. My favorite chapter was ‘In pursuit of brown-on-brown love’ by Jennifer Chowdhury. This is a paragraph from the said chapter,
“Despite sharing a language and cultural background, we’ve had completely different life experiences. We didn’t need to go through the same trauma to learn from each other, to respect each other’s thoughts and desires. He helped me find what I truly craved and identify what had been there all along: an unwavering sense of self.” 🤍
I think this is a book that should be read by everyone. I sense that different individuals will live through this book differently. Many will feel seen. So, if you do decide to pick this up, do let me know what your thoughts are!
PS: You don’t have to have read Brown’s Sex and the single girl before reading this. The passages tell us all that we need to know. ☺️
This book contains so much depth within its pages. To go into a little background; in 1962, Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the single girl was published. Even though I have not read it, it is said that it contains some outdated advice which would be considered offensive by today’s standards.
In contrast, Sex and the Single Woman brings insights into the lives of different individuals. Women and Non-gender conforming individuals from highly diverse backgrounds, from all walks of life reimagines Brown’s classic. At the same time, this feminist anthropology brings the stories of those many women, 24 to be exact, into light. This has an amazing collection of stories about a vast range of topics that revolve around womanhood, such as contraception, abortion, queer and trans womanhood, polyamory, celibacy, interracial dating, bodies of all kinds, consent, sex work, IVF and the pop culture that both saves and fails us. I learned so much while reading this. I FELT SEEN. My favorite chapter was ‘In pursuit of brown-on-brown love’ by Jennifer Chowdhury. This is a paragraph from the said chapter,
“Despite sharing a language and cultural background, we’ve had completely different life experiences. We didn’t need to go through the same trauma to learn from each other, to respect each other’s thoughts and desires. He helped me find what I truly craved and identify what had been there all along: an unwavering sense of self.” 🤍
I think this is a book that should be read by everyone. I sense that different individuals will live through this book differently. Many will feel seen. So, if you do decide to pick this up, do let me know what your thoughts are!
PS: You don’t have to have read Brown’s Sex and the single girl before reading this. The passages tell us all that we need to know. ☺️
June 7, 2022
Ease of Reading: 5✨
Substantiality: 5✨
Impactfulness: 5✨
Writing: 5✨
Overall: 5✨
Format: Audiovisual
Month Read: June 22
Recommend: Yess
This is a collection of beautifully written essays that are definitely not just for the single woman. They are explorative and enlightening and please just read them!
There are so many perspectives from different ages, races, queerness that no matter your background you will hopefully learn like I did. And also hopefully be inspired like I was too.
The book is based on a book written in the 60s, with a very modern take and discussion. It introduced me to 24 new writers that I’m sure I’ll read more of. What a book.
Substantiality: 5✨
Impactfulness: 5✨
Writing: 5✨
Overall: 5✨
Format: Audiovisual
Month Read: June 22
Recommend: Yess
This is a collection of beautifully written essays that are definitely not just for the single woman. They are explorative and enlightening and please just read them!
There are so many perspectives from different ages, races, queerness that no matter your background you will hopefully learn like I did. And also hopefully be inspired like I was too.
The book is based on a book written in the 60s, with a very modern take and discussion. It introduced me to 24 new writers that I’m sure I’ll read more of. What a book.
February 23, 2023
i think that the struggle with essay collections is that very rarely are they all going to be winners. a lot of them didn't really work for me or didn't seem to have the same depth as others; overall, i was a bit confused by the link to helen gurley brown's book, and i don't think it was a necessary tie-in to make the collection work. i really liked some of the essays though, in particular: apartment by seema reza, once, a white guy by tiana clark, and self-help by morgan parker.
January 15, 2025
Wasnt very profound
“I lost but in losing Ive imagined other goals; for life, for love, for art, and for being. I got to gather kindling for other kinds of fires; for writing, for travel, for solitary pleasures”
“I lost but in losing Ive imagined other goals; for life, for love, for art, and for being. I got to gather kindling for other kinds of fires; for writing, for travel, for solitary pleasures”
June 23, 2022
Some of the essays in this anthology will echo in my mind forever. A great collection of essays exploring the modern day “woman”.
June 13, 2023
this was relatively solid--like many collections, there were essays that were incredibly strong and ones that simply bored me, but it was a good 'read on the elliptical' book!
June 30, 2023
I feel like the hyperfocus on polyamory was not properly disclosed to the reader
Read
September 9, 2023Hard to rate this because I loved some of the stories and found others a lil lacking. ‘Apartment’ was probably my fav. Wouldn’t recommend the book but would recommend certain chaptersss
June 13, 2023
Overall I enjoyed this but it made me want to be single forever lol
May 27, 2022
This felt very disjointed, and not at all what I expected.
I definitely had some essays that I loved, but they didn’t make up for the ones that didn’t add anything.
I definitely had some essays that I loved, but they didn’t make up for the ones that didn’t add anything.
June 20, 2025
“Uncontrollable. They meant the word as a criticism; I wore it as a badge.”
This is a wonderful collection of essays, yes. But there is one essay that sticks out, IMHO, and it is "Apartment" by Seema Reza, on the joy of being (completely) alone. That particular piece, available to read here: https://lithub.com/seema-reza-on-the-..., is quiet and brilliant—and likely to make you a fan of My Wicked Wicked Ways: Poems by Sandra Cisneros, if you aren’t already. If I had to choose a second favorite, I’d say it’s "Big Second Wife Energy" by Minda Honey—a sharp, funny, and emotionally layered piece that stays with you.
*
Can dating advice ever be universal? How can something as generic as “advice” apply to the specific, embodied negotiations of desire, power, and intimacy between one person and another? How do writers approach this impossibility? These questions were top of mind as I began reading Sex and the Single Woman: 24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown’s Cult Classic. Edited by Eliza Smith and Haley Swanson, this anthology honors, critiques, and reimagines Sex and the Single Girl: The Unmarried Woman’s Guide to Men, published sixty years ago by Helen Gurley Brown.
Brown—writer, long-time Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief, and proto–girlboss—offered 1960s women a playbook for navigating life, love, finances, and sex while remaining gloriously unmarried. Her message was, in its time, radical: that a woman could be sexually active, professionally ambitious, and financially independent without needing to marry. But Brown’s single life came with a catch: its ultimate purpose was to attract a man and end singlehood altogether. With her self-taught seductive drawl, cutesy nonsense phrases like “pippy-poo,” and the notorious “egg and wine diet” that resurfaces online every few years as a relic of vintage absurdity, Brown cultivated an image of womanhood that was playful, performative, and deeply conditioned by male approval.
Importantly, the “girls” Brown addressed were women much like herself—or at least the ones she deemed aspirational: white, straight, cisgender, thin, able-bodied, and relentlessly chasing upward mobility. Brown’s optimism about hacking the system rarely translated into a desire to change it. As Samantha Allen notes in the anthology, she urged women “to play the game harder instead of flipping over the table.” That ethos—of working within rather than against the structures that oppress—lies at the heart of the new collection’s reappraisal.
Sex and the Single Woman responds not just to Brown’s content but to her form: the premise of a single authoritative voice offering universal guidance. Smith and Swanson subvert that very notion by presenting a collection of 24 essays that treat advice not as dogma but as personal narrative. In one standout essay, “Self-Help,” Morgan Parker writes: “I’ve never read a self-help book before. I don’t like when people tell me what to do, and I really hate when they’re telling everyone else the same thing.” Her resistance pinpoints the problem at the core of Brown’s original: that there is no one-size-fits-all advice for single women because singlehood is not a unified experience.
Instead, the new anthology approaches single life as multifaceted and heterogeneous—a constellation of positions, desires, histories, and identities. By choosing the format of an anthology, Smith and Swanson reject the seductive but problematic clarity of the singular voice. The result is refreshingly non-prescriptive. These essays say, in essence: here’s who I am, here’s what I’ve lived, here’s what I’ve learned—maybe.
Despite the range of perspectives, many essays converge on a familiar arc: the journey inward. Instead of girl-meets-boy, it’s girl-unlearns-body-shame, or girl-recovers-from-purity-culture. Often, the narrative resolution arrives with the speaker learning to prioritize the relationship they have with themselves. These are affirming messages—who wouldn’t benefit from unlearning patriarchal scripts or learning how to communicate more honestly?—but at times, I craved more friction. What does “healthy communication” actually look like when it hurts someone? How do you distinguish a firm boundary from an evasion of responsibility? Does taking yourself out to dinner really help if your therapist isn’t great, or if you still want someone to text goodnight?
Some of the most compelling essays are those that resist tidy resolution. Josie Pickens, for instance, recalls a friend pointing out her tendency toward emotional dumping—a moment of uncomfortable self-recognition that lingers. Other writers confess that even as they thrive alone, they still crave “the comfort of a hand in mine, the warmth of being claimed in the daylight.” These admissions feel like a small rebellion against the dominant narrative of self-sufficiency as liberation. They acknowledge that liberation, too, can be lonely.
Still, in a moment when bodily autonomy is under siege—amid waves of anti-trans and anti-reproductive rights legislation—perhaps now isn’t the time for subtlety. Maybe my desire for more unresolved tension, more ambivalence, is rooted in my own precarity: a longing to see my mess mirrored in these stories. Perhaps I’m just doing what readers have always done—what women did in the 1960s when they read Sex and the Single Girl and thought, Well, that’s not how it is for me. Or what Brown herself did when she imagined all single women must be struggling the same way she once did.
That, ultimately, may be the point of Sex and the Single Woman. Not to offer the definitive guide, but to dismantle the idea that one could ever exist. To remind us that each single woman writes her own story, and that the most honest collections resist easy morals. They give us fragments, contradictions, and sometimes, just the simple comfort of being seen.
*
I harbored a fantasy: to leave my family behind and start a new, simpler life, one in which I was not responsible for anyone else’s experience of the world.
*
Under the blinking gaze of even one other person, I’m changed. I force a smile then seethe at the effort. It wasn’t until a legal document ordered me to spend half my time without my children that I was able to finish school and build a career, one that depends on my willingness to experience my moods, to dive into the darkness and dwell in it.
To live with other people is to be responsible for protecting them from your moods. Or perhaps, to protect the delicate gift of your moods from them. Being fully myself requires that I stay in the deep and not bob to the surface when begged to emerge. In Apartment, in my apartment, I contend only with myself, with my own needs.
I don’t know if I sleep better when I’m alone, but when I’m alone, I’m free to sleep poorly.
This is a wonderful collection of essays, yes. But there is one essay that sticks out, IMHO, and it is "Apartment" by Seema Reza, on the joy of being (completely) alone. That particular piece, available to read here: https://lithub.com/seema-reza-on-the-..., is quiet and brilliant—and likely to make you a fan of My Wicked Wicked Ways: Poems by Sandra Cisneros, if you aren’t already. If I had to choose a second favorite, I’d say it’s "Big Second Wife Energy" by Minda Honey—a sharp, funny, and emotionally layered piece that stays with you.
*
Can dating advice ever be universal? How can something as generic as “advice” apply to the specific, embodied negotiations of desire, power, and intimacy between one person and another? How do writers approach this impossibility? These questions were top of mind as I began reading Sex and the Single Woman: 24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown’s Cult Classic. Edited by Eliza Smith and Haley Swanson, this anthology honors, critiques, and reimagines Sex and the Single Girl: The Unmarried Woman’s Guide to Men, published sixty years ago by Helen Gurley Brown.
Brown—writer, long-time Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief, and proto–girlboss—offered 1960s women a playbook for navigating life, love, finances, and sex while remaining gloriously unmarried. Her message was, in its time, radical: that a woman could be sexually active, professionally ambitious, and financially independent without needing to marry. But Brown’s single life came with a catch: its ultimate purpose was to attract a man and end singlehood altogether. With her self-taught seductive drawl, cutesy nonsense phrases like “pippy-poo,” and the notorious “egg and wine diet” that resurfaces online every few years as a relic of vintage absurdity, Brown cultivated an image of womanhood that was playful, performative, and deeply conditioned by male approval.
Importantly, the “girls” Brown addressed were women much like herself—or at least the ones she deemed aspirational: white, straight, cisgender, thin, able-bodied, and relentlessly chasing upward mobility. Brown’s optimism about hacking the system rarely translated into a desire to change it. As Samantha Allen notes in the anthology, she urged women “to play the game harder instead of flipping over the table.” That ethos—of working within rather than against the structures that oppress—lies at the heart of the new collection’s reappraisal.
Sex and the Single Woman responds not just to Brown’s content but to her form: the premise of a single authoritative voice offering universal guidance. Smith and Swanson subvert that very notion by presenting a collection of 24 essays that treat advice not as dogma but as personal narrative. In one standout essay, “Self-Help,” Morgan Parker writes: “I’ve never read a self-help book before. I don’t like when people tell me what to do, and I really hate when they’re telling everyone else the same thing.” Her resistance pinpoints the problem at the core of Brown’s original: that there is no one-size-fits-all advice for single women because singlehood is not a unified experience.
Instead, the new anthology approaches single life as multifaceted and heterogeneous—a constellation of positions, desires, histories, and identities. By choosing the format of an anthology, Smith and Swanson reject the seductive but problematic clarity of the singular voice. The result is refreshingly non-prescriptive. These essays say, in essence: here’s who I am, here’s what I’ve lived, here’s what I’ve learned—maybe.
Despite the range of perspectives, many essays converge on a familiar arc: the journey inward. Instead of girl-meets-boy, it’s girl-unlearns-body-shame, or girl-recovers-from-purity-culture. Often, the narrative resolution arrives with the speaker learning to prioritize the relationship they have with themselves. These are affirming messages—who wouldn’t benefit from unlearning patriarchal scripts or learning how to communicate more honestly?—but at times, I craved more friction. What does “healthy communication” actually look like when it hurts someone? How do you distinguish a firm boundary from an evasion of responsibility? Does taking yourself out to dinner really help if your therapist isn’t great, or if you still want someone to text goodnight?
Some of the most compelling essays are those that resist tidy resolution. Josie Pickens, for instance, recalls a friend pointing out her tendency toward emotional dumping—a moment of uncomfortable self-recognition that lingers. Other writers confess that even as they thrive alone, they still crave “the comfort of a hand in mine, the warmth of being claimed in the daylight.” These admissions feel like a small rebellion against the dominant narrative of self-sufficiency as liberation. They acknowledge that liberation, too, can be lonely.
Still, in a moment when bodily autonomy is under siege—amid waves of anti-trans and anti-reproductive rights legislation—perhaps now isn’t the time for subtlety. Maybe my desire for more unresolved tension, more ambivalence, is rooted in my own precarity: a longing to see my mess mirrored in these stories. Perhaps I’m just doing what readers have always done—what women did in the 1960s when they read Sex and the Single Girl and thought, Well, that’s not how it is for me. Or what Brown herself did when she imagined all single women must be struggling the same way she once did.
That, ultimately, may be the point of Sex and the Single Woman. Not to offer the definitive guide, but to dismantle the idea that one could ever exist. To remind us that each single woman writes her own story, and that the most honest collections resist easy morals. They give us fragments, contradictions, and sometimes, just the simple comfort of being seen.
*
I harbored a fantasy: to leave my family behind and start a new, simpler life, one in which I was not responsible for anyone else’s experience of the world.
*
Under the blinking gaze of even one other person, I’m changed. I force a smile then seethe at the effort. It wasn’t until a legal document ordered me to spend half my time without my children that I was able to finish school and build a career, one that depends on my willingness to experience my moods, to dive into the darkness and dwell in it.
To live with other people is to be responsible for protecting them from your moods. Or perhaps, to protect the delicate gift of your moods from them. Being fully myself requires that I stay in the deep and not bob to the surface when begged to emerge. In Apartment, in my apartment, I contend only with myself, with my own needs.
I don’t know if I sleep better when I’m alone, but when I’m alone, I’m free to sleep poorly.
March 14, 2022
Thank you #Netgalley for the advanced copy!
I was unfamiliar with the original book referenced, and appreciated many of the authors talking about their experiences when they first heard of it. Some of the essays were very scattered and was hard to make the connection to the topic. It took me awhile to read through this book. I expected a more lighthearted read, where this became heavy at times.
I was unfamiliar with the original book referenced, and appreciated many of the authors talking about their experiences when they first heard of it. Some of the essays were very scattered and was hard to make the connection to the topic. It took me awhile to read through this book. I expected a more lighthearted read, where this became heavy at times.
May 25, 2022
An amazing anthology covering so many aspects of singlehood- loneliness, dating, sexuality, having kids, abortion, the choice to get married, masturbation, etc. I found myself especially moved by Natalie Lima, Laura Bogart, Seema Reza, and Melissa Faliveno’s essays.
September 12, 2023
Some of these essays were brilliant, but most of them I found to be lacking depth and originality.
September 1, 2022
I picked up this book immediately after reading Morgan Parker's "Confessions of a Perpetually Single Woman" in Elle. (It was so achingly resonant). (I've recommended it to everyone).
I'm not sure what I was expecting the remaining 23 essays to encapsulate (in fact I didn't think much about it at all), but I was wonderfully and pleasantly surprised. The subtitle, "24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown's Cult Classic," does little to convey the breadth and depth of these essays. There are entries by transwomen, by other queer people, by sex workers, by women in their late sixties, by disabled women. They talk about love affairs and being virgins and the glory of having your own apartment (and the vulnerability of sharing an apartment). There are women who are mothers, women on IVF, women who never want to have children in their lives. Women who are happy to be single, women who are no longer single, women who are desperately lonely and vulnerable enough to share that. All of these essays written by amazing, fantastic writers including Nichole Perkins, Keah Brown, and Kristen Arnett.
I feel confident saying there's a little something in here for everyone (and it's definitely worth the read!). (Or at the very least, please read Morgan Parker's essay, for the love of god!!)
I'm not sure what I was expecting the remaining 23 essays to encapsulate (in fact I didn't think much about it at all), but I was wonderfully and pleasantly surprised. The subtitle, "24 Writers Reimagine Helen Gurley Brown's Cult Classic," does little to convey the breadth and depth of these essays. There are entries by transwomen, by other queer people, by sex workers, by women in their late sixties, by disabled women. They talk about love affairs and being virgins and the glory of having your own apartment (and the vulnerability of sharing an apartment). There are women who are mothers, women on IVF, women who never want to have children in their lives. Women who are happy to be single, women who are no longer single, women who are desperately lonely and vulnerable enough to share that. All of these essays written by amazing, fantastic writers including Nichole Perkins, Keah Brown, and Kristen Arnett.
I feel confident saying there's a little something in here for everyone (and it's definitely worth the read!). (Or at the very least, please read Morgan Parker's essay, for the love of god!!)
October 15, 2022
I plan to recommend this book to all the single ladies and non-binary people in my life! As with any essay collection, some resonated more with me than others, but unlike other essay collections, I was able to find something of value in every single one I read.
I loved how “real” the writers were. Most of the writers didn’t sugarcoat their feelings or their situation. At times, I felt sad and heartbroken with them, but I think that’s what makes this anthology beautiful. I saw it as a reality check, and I took it as a reminder that regardless of what happens in my journey to forever partnership or eternal singledom, it will all be fine.
I appreciated the diversity of the writers and their stories. I suspect everyone who reads it will find at least one person whose essay they can relate to, which I think is especially valuable given that this collection is a reimagining of a dated and homogeneous book. The editors’ goal was to represent single women in as many different ways as they could, and they succeeded.
The length of the essays varied — I wished some were longer while I wished others were shorter. But overall, the writers were generally able to keep my attention. Some of the styles were a bit more poetic, which I didn’t necessarily expect or enjoy as much, but I’m not in the business of gatekeeping how others tell their stories.
I loved how “real” the writers were. Most of the writers didn’t sugarcoat their feelings or their situation. At times, I felt sad and heartbroken with them, but I think that’s what makes this anthology beautiful. I saw it as a reality check, and I took it as a reminder that regardless of what happens in my journey to forever partnership or eternal singledom, it will all be fine.
I appreciated the diversity of the writers and their stories. I suspect everyone who reads it will find at least one person whose essay they can relate to, which I think is especially valuable given that this collection is a reimagining of a dated and homogeneous book. The editors’ goal was to represent single women in as many different ways as they could, and they succeeded.
The length of the essays varied — I wished some were longer while I wished others were shorter. But overall, the writers were generally able to keep my attention. Some of the styles were a bit more poetic, which I didn’t necessarily expect or enjoy as much, but I’m not in the business of gatekeeping how others tell their stories.
May 16, 2022
First of all, I just have to say that I am thankful for both Harper Perennial and Bibliolifestyle for sending me this finished copy of Sex and the Single Woman before its publishing day of May 17, 2022.
Helen Gurley Brown's original book titled "Sex and the Single Girl" detailed the importance of women/girls exploring their sexual identities before they chose to marry, or without the marriage happening at all. The books was ridiculed by many and thought to be "Taboo" for women weren't to act so independently, especially not in a sexual manner for those activities were to be practiced with their spouse and intimately. Flash forward 60 years, and 24 different female authors/writers have come together under Harper Perennial to reimagine this overarching message and tell the non-fiction/essay formatted tales of women who've come to relish, hate, and live their single lifetimes.
Everyone should pick up a copy of this book and appreciate it for the themes it conveys -- the aptitude that all women should be allotted their sexual freedoms and abilities to discover who we are, throughout every age in our existences.
5/5
Helen Gurley Brown's original book titled "Sex and the Single Girl" detailed the importance of women/girls exploring their sexual identities before they chose to marry, or without the marriage happening at all. The books was ridiculed by many and thought to be "Taboo" for women weren't to act so independently, especially not in a sexual manner for those activities were to be practiced with their spouse and intimately. Flash forward 60 years, and 24 different female authors/writers have come together under Harper Perennial to reimagine this overarching message and tell the non-fiction/essay formatted tales of women who've come to relish, hate, and live their single lifetimes.
Everyone should pick up a copy of this book and appreciate it for the themes it conveys -- the aptitude that all women should be allotted their sexual freedoms and abilities to discover who we are, throughout every age in our existences.
5/5
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