How Should a Person Be?

Sheila Heti wrote this autobiographical novel about a writer named Sheila who struggles to complete a play while questioning fundamental aspects of her identity and purpose. She records conversations with her friends and reflects on her relationships in Toronto's art scene. The narrative follows Sheila's friendship with painter Margaux and their circle of artists, writers, and creative people. Through their interactions and Sheila's personal reflections, the book documents her attempts to understand what makes a meaningful life and career. The book mixes formats including transcribed conversations, emails, and traditional narrative sections to construct its story. Readers see Sheila navigate her divorce, creative blocks, and evolving relationships with friends and lovers. This experimental work sits at the intersection of fiction and memoir, exploring questions about authenticity, female friendship, and the relationship between art and life. The book challenges conventional ideas about how to tell stories and what constitutes a novel.

Readers call this book either brutally honest or self-indulgent navel-gazing, with few opinions falling in between. The experimental format and stream-of-consciousness style created strong reactions. Readers appreciated: - Raw, unfiltered examination of friendship and art - Authentic portrayal of young adult uncertainty - Fresh take on autofiction - Sharp humor and memorable lines Common criticisms: - Narcissistic protagonist - Meandering plot - Too much focus on mundane details - Pretentious tone - Graphic sexual content that felt unnecessary Ratings: Goodreads: 3.5/5 (19,000+ ratings) Amazon: 3.7/5 (200+ reviews) Sample reader comments: "Like reading someone's diary but in a good way" - Goodreads "Self-absorbed millennial nonsense" - Amazon "Captures the messiness of trying to create art while figuring out who you are" - NPR reader review "Either brilliant or insufferable depending on your tolerance for naval-gazing" - LibraryThing

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🔹 The book blurs the line between fiction and memoir, using real emails, transcribed conversations, and actual events from Sheila Heti's life, creating what she calls an "ugly novel from real life" 🔹 The protagonist shares both name and profession with the author, and many characters are based on Heti's real-life friends in Toronto's art scene, including painter Margaux Williamson 🔹 The book began as a play that Heti worked on for several years before abandoning it and transforming the material into this experimental novel 🔹 While initially published in Canada in 2010, the U.S. version released in 2012 was significantly revised and shortened, with approximately 20% of the content being different 🔹 The New York Times listed it as one of the 15 remarkable books by women that are "shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century"