She Memes Well

by Quinta Brunson

Features an Audible Exclusive: The Making of Abbott Elementary. 

“In She Memes Well, Quinta gives more than a peek behind the curtain. She invites us in, lets us poke around and offers a balm for our aching souls. She moves beyond the jokes into something much deeper, something we may not recognize we need. She is the friend, sister, lover, cool co-worker we all wished we had.” (Gabrielle Union, actress and New York Times best-selling author of We're Going to Need More Wine)

From comedian Quinta Brunson (creator and star of Abbott Elementary) comes a deeply personal and funny collection of essays about trying to make it when you're struggling, the importance of staying true to your roots, and how she's redefined humor online. This special Audible edition includes never-before-heard details about the making of Abbott Elementary, the cast, the writers' room, and how the show inadvertently created hundreds of new roles for young Black actors.

Quinta Brunson is a master at breaking the internet. Before having any traditional background in media, her humorous videos were the first to go viral on Instagram's platform. From there, Brunson's wryly observant POV helped cement her status in the comedy world at large, with roles on HBO, Netflix, ABC, Adult Swim, BuzzFeed, the CW, and Comedy Central. Now, Brunson is bringing her comedic chops to the page in She Memes Well, an earnest, laugh-out-loud collection about this unusual road to notoriety.

In her debut essay collection, Quinta applies her trademark humor and heart to discuss what it was like to go from a girl who loved the World Wide Web to a girl whose face launched a thousand memes. With anecdotes that range from the ridiculous—like the time she decided to go clubbing wearing an outfit she describes as "Gary Coleman meets metrosexual pirate"—to more heartfelt material about her struggles with depression, Quinta's voice is entirely authentic and eminently enjoyable. With its intimate tone and hilarious moments, She Memes Well will make you feel as if you're sitting down with your chillest, funniest friend.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Humor, Essays, Audiobook, Biography, Autobiography

Audio CD

First published June 15, 2021

Reviews

[chantel nouseforaname · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quinta is funny, but when she’s serious she tells so many truths about being a young, Black woman climbing up through a very white male internet-comedy industry. I enjoyed her observations about hair & parents.

As she’s grown in popularity, she doesn’t take anything for granted. Fame has surprised her, but this is a book about following your dreams and not giving up on yourself — even when you desperately feel like it while staring in the face of some white lady screaming at you in an Apple store because her iPad can’t read her dog’s paw! ◉_◉ A true and hilarious story, included in these essays.

I respect her grind, I enjoyed this memoir, and I really love an everyday regular-degular story about a Black woman following her dreams and doing the damn thing.

Complaints... the ending felt like she was just jamming shit in, I feel you, I get it. I understand one's need to do that... I get it. First books are like that. 2020 was a trying year. Your boyfriend also proposed... sounds like a healthy forgiving relationship, *shrug*.

[Fabian · Rating 4 out of 5]

There ain't no better comedy show out there than "Black Lady Sketch Show." It is the only show I watch weekly--I've seen season 1 and 2 about ten times. LOVE love love love LOVE.

So this is how come I decided on my next comedic autobio. It's a goody. Soooo irreverent, it brings forth the pandemic and shur downs. Also--wow. Second City credits ALWAYS impress the shit outta me.

Love her innovation, her newness. But her small diva-isms are apparent. Like, you are barely starting out (at least I hope your career is in its infancy!)--can you imagine when you actually go home with an Emmy? THEN you can deny fans pics and autographs. Til then, hope to see you MORE in WHATEVER capacity, Miss Brunson!

[BookOfCinz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love a great collection of essays. I think Quinta does a great job of telling interesting stories that thoroughly grasp your attention. Some of the essays I got into the the others fell a bit flat but overall I think this is an ok debut novel. Get that money girl!

[Veronika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quinta Brunson was just a Philly girl living in a LA world with dreams of working in comedy when she became a meme sensation overnight! After her “Girl Who’s Never” videos started to garner the attention of the public and her move from the Apple store to BuzzFeed, Quinta was finally able to work on her internet content, sketch comedy, writing, and tv show pitches. In She Memes Well, Quinta B. talks about all the things that make her the self-proclaimed “semi-famous, expert Mario Party-playing, comedy-loving bad cook” that she is today; from her first meme experience to her appearance as a series regular on “A Black Lady Sketch Show”, Quinta uses this collection of essays to share her stumbles along her path from memedom to stardom.

Reading this felt like I was sitting on the couch with one of my homegirls and as a Philly girl myself, this book gave me all the nostalgia and homesick vibes for my beloved hometown. The anecdotes in each chapter mixed with her added humor made this a very down-to-earth and cool way of getting to know Quinta and I never knew we shared so many things in common, such as our height (I actually might be shorter than her lol), our love of Pharrell Williams, having four siblings, bonding with our nephews through video games, and of course our love for all things Philly!

My favorite chapters definitely had to be Quinta’s Classics, her time as a member of the high school fight Avengers 😂, the many life lessons you can learn from Mario Kart, Ahali, and her three great loves. I also liked how she explained the difference between being a celebrity and being famous and how she is in it for the craft as opposed to the notoriety. I’m glad that I got to read this as the Well Read Black Girl book club read for July and that I was able to attend the amazing zoom discussion with Quinta (she answered my question & I’m lowkey hype she said me name lol). I highly recommend this for those who have also read and enjoyed The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae.

Also, don’t forget to support Quinta by watching her new show “Abbott Elementary” when it premieres on ABC!


Rating: 💰💰💰💰💰/5 (5 money bags out of 5 because “Oooh, he got money!”)

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to the author, this book took about four years to write since she was very selective about which essays to include. The time was well worth it as each essay is unique, humorous, and relatable. Essays cover her early years, her move to LA, and her current success. I had never heard of Quinta before this book, but my kids had. I was very impressed by the care she seemed to take in writing this book. She really went above and beyond to make it meaningful and true. As a result, I think this book will be especially loved by her fans and those who have grown up with social media. She offers some really sound and helpful advice.

[LALa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was, for the most part, such a fun and enjoyable read! I caught some of Brunson's Internet notoriety as it happened, but wasn't there for everything. I became a big fan of Quinta through her Twitter, but most especially after watching her in A Black Lady Sketch Show. I was excited for her as her career continued to climb, and kept rooting for her.
Finally able to return to local libraries and checking out physical copies again, I immediately grabbed this from the shelf as soon as I saw it. With COVID ongoing and coming out of a deep depression, I kind of forgot this book existed, and was thankful for the reminder.

This memoir is filled with her experiences, what shaped her most, and felt like she composed them with care, and I really just enjoy her as a writer. I said for the most part because she is open and honest about the Black experience as it pertains to her coming from a Philly background, and unfortunately gun violence is all too common a Black experience. So, those moments were hard to read and I had to put the book down for some time. In fact, I was reading it at a cafe and found a place I could stop without finishing the chapter and just got up and left. Something I've almost never had to do. However, I returned to it and was able to finish and am grateful that I have.

There's probably a bit more I could say about this one, but I'll just end on this: She Memes Well is definitely one of my favorite memoirs.

[Tamyka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took a long time cause I kept picking it up and putting it down. It was a kindle book and I don’t love ebooks so they tend to take me longer. I felt like she was incredibly honest and transparent. She was open, she just hasn’t had a lot of remarkable experiences so it made the memoir a bit flat. The chapters where she talks about her career and being a content creator were the most interesting to me and I wish she had delved deeper into her creative process and the business side of things. Either way it made me like her more cause I knew her memes but didn’t follow her on social media so I didn’t know her well. In her memoir she comes across as super relatable.

ETA: After watching Abbott Elementary I REALLY wish she had talked more about her creative process and shared more of her collaborating professional relationships and stories. Kinda like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did. Either way it was a solid memoir.

[Jamele (BookswithJams) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great collection of essays that showed not only how funny Quinta Brunson is, but more importantly provided insight into who she is as a person as well as her background and how she got started in comedy. I loved the mix of comedy in with real, honest talk and thought this was well done in essay format. I'm excited to watch and see what all she does as she is just getting started.

[Jamie Feuerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished mere minutes before 2026!

This may be the first time I’ve read a memoir of someone I’m truly a fan of, and it was really cool seeing how Quinta’s early life and and the beginnings of her career influenced her later work (especially Abbott Elementary, even though this book was written before it aired). And as someone who watched a lot of Buzzfeed back in the day this gave much such a sense of nostalgia for that era.

I wish this included more about how she decided to leave Buzzfeed and really go into TV writing! I was so looking forward to hearing about that and it’s pretty much glossed over.

Totally recommend if you’re a fan of Quinta, might not get as much out of it if not but you’ll probably still be entertained.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book seeing I’m a huge fan of ABBOTT ELEMENTARY and Quinta’s Buzzfeed videos. But I felt like the essays were unevenly paced and not always the same quality. There would be a few funny moments, but this book was much more melancholy than a comedy book and too juvenile for a literary memoir. Something seemed off about who the audience is. I wish Quinta had waited a little bit before writing this book; it would hold much more richness after her production experience on ABBOTT ELEMENTARY.

[Maja · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve decided to stop shying away from one star reviews (with some encouragement) so this may look very harsh but let me explain. If i genuinely regret reading a book and think it was a complete waste of my time… isn’t that worthy of a one star? Some may know that I don’t DNF books, ever. I don’t regret reading a lot of books I’ve disliked and it is not a waste of time to me. I like dismantling when the book started falling apart and why I didn’t like it, what mistakes were made in writing it (imo), how it could’ve been better. I think I do learn from bad books too, but every now and then there is a book that is just so much nothing that it was indeed a waste of time and this one is one of them.

I like Quinta’s work I’ve been exposed to previously, love it even, and think she’s a great comedian but her comedy did not translate into this format. I don’t blame her because writing comedy in prose book format is (I think) the most difficult form of both comedy and writing. And clearly she attempted to be funny in this book and it fell flat.

I didn’t like the extremely casual way with which this book was written, using language one does to text friends rather than write anything coherent. Moreover this book lacks substance to me. It is ultimately about nothing, at least most of the chapters are. It lacks storylines entirely, because yes storylines are still present in nonfic books! They’re basic A to B story structures, if you’re writing you need to be writing about *something*. A topic, theme or a message, that is your goal. And what you’re writing (whether the entire book or a single chapter) should be a journey towards that goal/message/exploration of that theme/topic.

None of this book does that. It’s just random information about her life. If you’re somebody who likes celebrity gossip, or more so, just reading on about celebrities lives, personalities, childhoods, etc. then you may enjoy this. I’m not one of those people.

[Zibby Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a collection of personal essays in a memoir-style where the author discusses what it was like to go from a girl who loved the World Wide Web to a girl whose face launched a thousand memes. The theme is around having growth as a person while aligning with the development of the internet. It is funny, but it tracks the internet's digital-sharing age while also tracking the author's personal-sharing age.

One part that I loved is that the author involves the reader from the beginning and says, "All right, settle in. Here we go. This is why I'm doing it." We went along with the author and got to experience and relive all the things that had happened to her along the way. Somehow, we all got to share and celebrate. I found it highly compelling how she wrote about her experience of being black in America and her amazing education. What a unique way to be educated, through that lens of black history taking center stage.

My favorite line in the book was, "Does a like replace a lunch?" She also wrote, "I probably sound like a cranky, old person right now, but I just care about genuine connection because it has given so much. How often do you physically engage with what your friends are going through? Does a comment fill the same space as a call? Does a like replace a lunch? If you're lucky enough to have multiple close friends, even if they aren't life-long ones, what are you doing to show them that you value those people, that you want to maintain the relationship? What more can you do besides sending a meme or an emoji reaction? Sure, social media can bring us together, but it will not always foster those connections that can get us to grow together."

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/qui...

[Never Without a Book]

Quinta is so funny. I really enjoyed this book. more thoughts to come.

Comedian and actress Quinta Brunson shares her personal and funny stories about overcoming obstacles in life. Without any formal media training, Brunson created and launched her first video series on Instagram in 2014. Her videos quickly became the first to break through on the platform. In She Memes Well, Quinta talks about how she went from flat broke to half-recognized in her debut collection. Quinta Brunson hilarious, she spent about four years writing this book, which is a lot of work, but it was well worth it. Each essay is unique, funny, and very relatable. Thank you, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for the gifted copy.

[Tollula · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really like Quinta from The Black Lady Sketch Show and was hoping her humor would transfer to her writing. It did not.

[S LaSha Dates · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will admit that I didn't know anything about Quinta Brunson until Abbott Elementary came out. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Quinta is hilarious.

[Marina GB · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot express how much I love Abbott Elementary, and I think it’s so cool how it came from Quinta’s mind. I really enjoyed hearing about her life and everything she chose to tell us. Even though her life is not PG-13, this one is going in the classroom. I really want to take her chapter about body image and create something with that for my high schoolers. There is so much in this book that is healthy, important, insightful, and honest. I’m really glad she wrote it. Thanks, Alana, for the Christmas present!

[Grace Cooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I thought that it was written well I struggled to get through it. I thought it was cute but that's all I really thought about it...it was cute. I had trouble staying engaged. It was a fun read though.

[deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is probably now my current favorite celebrity memoir? Quinta has such a bright, effervescent personality and amazing sense of humor that just shines through here! She does a really solid job of switching between personal experiences to anecdotes about life and then to more serious topics, all while keeping a consistent writing style that makes it feel like she's having a conversation with you. I remember devotedly watching her BuzzFeed videos years ago; now I'm watching her on "Abbott Elementary", and reading this heightened my admiration of her so much!

[Julie Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved Quinta before, love her even more now. currently down a YouTube rabbit hole of all the content she’s ever made

[Stanjay Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a fan of Quinta’s energy and artistry. I loved her essays! They were real, engaging, and of course, funny! I really enjoyed reading about her upbringing in Philadelphia, which was super relatable, and the very last essay that she wrote in the midst of the pandemic was thought-provoking.
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⚠️ Trigger Warning: murder ⚠️

[Gabriella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing to write home about, and nothing to review about!!

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a raving fan of Abbott Elementary, it was very interesting to read about the very unique career path that led Quinta Brunson to where she is now. While I was expecting more humorous essays, this book is really a more serious memoir about the defining moments in her life. I still enjoyed it very much and hope she'll write another book someday about her experience creating the show.

[Denise Lauron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up for bookclub.

I enjoyed the book for the most part. I didn't fully get into it until the epilogue which was only available through Audible. The epilogue was the best part of the book. It really tied the rest of the story together.

I recommend this book, but only if it includes the epilogue.

[Tiffany Roper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been a fan of Quinta since her days at Buzzfeed. She seems so down-to-earth and would likely be someone I’d become instant friends with based on our shared interests. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her unwavering ambition and her journey to “internet stardom.”

[Caitlyn Legath · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Quinta. I didn’t even realize how long I’ve loved Quinta since I read this book! She does an amazing job mixing humor and important topics and this was just such a lovely read. This is my most prized coffee table book now!

[Trina Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Major Quinta fan here. Loved.

[Mark Fajet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny and insightful

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Abbott Elementary, LOVE IT. So I knew I wanted to read this. I honestly didn't know a whole lot about Quinta Brunson before this, except I just knew that I loved her. I feel like I probably watched some of her Buzzfeed stuff without knowing it, but that's about it.

I think some of the essays in this were really touching and well done, and others were just little looks into her life. I honestly think I could have done without the ones that were specifically about memes or her favorite songs, but I guess it was just a good way to divide up the different topics. I can't deny that the epilogue was my favorite part, but only because it was mostly about Abbott. Did I mention I love Abbott Elementary?

If you're going to read this one, I highly suggest the audiobook. She does SUCH a good job with it. The only downside is that it's an Audible exclusive. That's my main complaint.

[Corinne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley for my honest review.

This collection of essays was delightful, real, and gave real insight into who Quinta is. This book felt like the progression of a sleepover with one of your best friends. It starts off with telling stories from childhood and at one point you're in the middle of the night and you're talking about the deep stuff then to lighten everything up you talk about your favorite shows and movies and music. And then it gets real again. And in a time where we're all alone, or not being able to hang out with friends over a glass of wine and have sleepovers this book provided a deep comfort.

[thefourthvine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this one immediately after Sophia Benoit’s Well, This Is Exhausting, and the books are surprisingly similar in structure, right down to lists of formative popular culture and sections where it veers into advice. Also, both books have a similar conversational tone; neither one is particularly funny. This is like reading the stories someone would tell you if you spent a long night chatting with them. (Also, significantly, at least parts of both books were written in 2020, which might explain the conversational tone.)

This book is the better of the two. It doesn’t have a lengthy 101-level Social Justice for Beginners section, for one thing, but also — Quinta is just the better writer. This book flows better and is more readable and personal, which is super important because, again, these books are both essentially one-sided conversations.

(I admit to being sliiiightly irritated by the “just sit down with your friends and have an in-person conversation with them!” screed in this one, but that’s because it’s December 2021 and I’ve just canceled every in-person social event. Again. Like, I am very grateful for my internet social life, Quinta! Especially because it’s the only one I can safely have.)