This was nowhere as good as Bitch Magazine said it would be, but it's also not as bad as the NPR review suggested it is.

This is the memoir Lena Dunham wishes she wrote. Michelle Tea's adventures and exploits offer readers plenty to be entertained by, including the best description of a so-called "work-life balance" I've ever heard of. The real value of this book, though, is her truly hard-earned wisdom. If you can't afford therapy, or are not able to pay for as many sessions as you'd like, read this book. —Recommended by Stacey, City Lights Publishers

Tea's path to adulthood may have been rocky, but was ultimately smoothed by her becoming a successful and beloved writer. Most aspiring wordsmiths are not destined for that happy fate and may require an altogether different set of advice. Fortunately, financially failed Peter Pans (like me!) can still enjoy How to Grow Up as a charmingly witty recovery memoir.

I was provided a free advance digital copy of this book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.Those who enjoyed Cheryl Strayed's blend of advice column and confessional in Tiny Beautiful Things should seek out this new book by Michelle Tea. Containing frank truths, funny anecdotes, and very little prescriptive "advice", it offers a reassurance to anyone suffering from class issues, misogyny, poverty, traumatic memories of bullying, dysfunctional families, or homophobia that it does, in...

Having read Rent Girl a while back, I figured getting an updated perspective on the life of Michelle Tea would be interesting. Sadly, I was greatly disappointed by this book of memoir-essays. I think this book could more aptly be titled "How To Feel Better About Making Really Expensive Purchases After Having Been Poor For A Long Time, And How That Totally Makes You Awesome And Able To Judge Other People Because Seriously, You Used To Be Poor And Now You Can Afford Really Expensive Purses And Des...

ugggghhhhhh i have wasted so much time on michelle tea and i am officially over it. more like, how to grow smug and self-satisfied. how to justify your de-politicized domesticity. how to bore me to tears yet still scandalize me with casual references to botox as self-care. ugggghhhhhhhhh.

I have no doubt talked about my love for Michelle Tea on Goodreads before... but here I go again...I first discovered Michelle Tea in my late twenties when I was in San Francisco, her books really spoke to me - this was me! these were my thoughts! her books that I read then felt very real and raw and I connected so much with them and also I loved reading about her eating vegan food... as a vegan I get excited when books have vegans in them... which doesn't happen very often. I then leant her boo...

I almost passed this book up, having read a handful of Tea's other self destructive memoirs (which were all great in their own way, but sometimes just mind candy). I'm glad I didn't though because this was just what I needed right now - a reminder that it's okay to grow up. Maybe sometimes I miss the freedom of being 23 + staying up until 4am dancing my way through a bottle of whiskey at a DIY space, but the truth is, that 23 yr old was also an asshole. The memoir revels in the benefits of being...

shelfnotes.comDear Reader,I have long been a fan of Michelle Tea, which is why I picked this book up even though I don't tend to like memoirs. So, Tea's voice in this book balanced out a lot of my disinterest in learning "life lessons" from people. I found it to be, overall, a good read, although certainly nothing life-changing. Tea had a few great pieces of wisdom to impart, particularly (for me) in her chapter on "How to Break Up," advice I really could have used around the time I lived in Bos...

I have weird feelings about this book. I read an advance copy as part of Penguin's First-to-Read program, and I was really excited to get to read a Michelle Tea book before it was even released. And now I'm glad that I got to read an advance copy, because that means I didn't have to pay for it...I read it in a day-and-a-half. And that's a testament to the quality of the writing, for sure - it pulled me along so that I only put it down when I absolutely HAD to. And when I first finished it, I tho...

I started reading Michelle Tea about one hundred years ago when Imogen told me to and I have never looked back. She is SO GREAT. Funny and smart and earthy and mystical and just brimming and shimmering like a rain barrel with will and belief and love. The best.

This was a really disappointing book. I got about 100 pages in before giving up. I couldn't get into the writing style at all - really simple and dismissive. Michelle Tea seems to have "grown up" into a boring, fairly wealthy lady who thinks all relationships must be monogamous or else they will definitely fail, who encourages Botox injections and vacations in Paris as a lovely way to get over your most recent ex, and who's definitely lost her sparkle for me. Too bad.

Michelle Tea is a working class, feminist, queer writer whose work I respect and treasure. Valencia and Rose of No Man's Land are two of my favorite novel/memoirs about growing up as a girl in the United States, period. She founded Sister Spit and has worked with City Lights Publisher to publish queer/feminist writers. More recently, I was enthralled by her column Getting Pregnant with Michelle Tea and, although I'm not a parent, I have been following her most recent publishing project Mutha Mag...

I received an advance copy of this from Penguin Books' First to Read program. I'm not sold on "How to Grow Up." To its credit, it is an easy read. Tea is witty. Her descriptions are deadpan, irreverent, and at times, made me laugh out loud. Structurally, it is somewhat schizophrenic. I'm not sure if this is a memoir made of essays or a memoir made of essays with a few self-help how-to lists; what kind of book am I dealing with here? Maybe Tea is going for a style inspired by Quentin Crisp, and i...

I loved a lot of this but the voice is much more commercial than Tea's other work -- I mean, this is her most commercial book. She's speaking to a different audience, mostly straight cis women, it seems like; the content much less queer, at times maybe even de-queered... Still lots of wisdom about class, inequality, living broke, ambition, addiction, making "irresponsible" choices that actually are the best right choices. I tried to put into practice the money intention (reciting "money loves me...

This was one of those books that I read just at the right time. Topics in this memoir in essays by legendary queer San Francisco writer include fashion, money, "scarcity issues," not living in a shithole punk house anymore, moisturizing, food, babies, marriage, exercising, spirituality, class, (not going to) college, and how to honour your 19-year-old despair-striken activist self without falling back into depsair. That last one was my favourite: "I had a terrible sort of revelation, in which al...

When you’ve been a punk rock blue collar junkie and alcoholic involved in sexy trade and you finally realize you want a fridge free of maggots... how do you grow up and be true to yourself?I’ve met and seen her quite a few times and it’s a relief she is here and alive and thriving and doing the damn thing. There were some annoyances others mentioned about how this book is a guilt about getting money and her life together and a wife and stuff. But unless you grew up in a way similar to her; you w...

I did not need to read about Michelle Tea getting Botox. Ever. Once you read this shit you can't unread it, and Valencia will never be the same again.

I had high hopes for this book, especially being that I can identify with some of the themes (although I feel like I had my shit together a little earlier but whatever, it's all relative). Admittedly, I am unfamiliar with Michelle Tea's other writing and maybe if I were this book would have held my interest longer. Of course, on the flip side I also may not have been so quick to pick this book up at all.Two stars for the fact that this writer held my interest through 27% of the book--I mean, she...

To start off, I'll say this was an entertaining quick read I didn't put down for a few days. As always, Michelle Tea is a compelling and funny writer. To be real, though, I spent the majority of my time reading this book feeling frustrated and disappointed. Michelle Tea regales the joys of botox, eating organic, and getting gay-married with a real diamond ring under the pretense that this is "growing up". I'm not trying to de/moralize her lifestyle choices, but memorializing them as a memoir fee...