Melissa Broder

From acclaimed poet and creator of the popular Twitter account @sosadtoday comes a darkly funny and brutally honest collection of essays. Melissa Broder always struggled with anxiety. In the fall of 2012, she went through a harrowing cycle of panic attacks and dread that wouldn't abate for months. So she began @sosadtoday, an anonymous Twitter feed that allowed her to express her darkest feelings, and which quickly gained a dedicated following. In SO SAD TODAY, Broder delves deeper into the existential themes she explores on Twitter, grappling with sex, death, love low self-esteem, addiction, and the drama of waiting for the universe to text you back. With insights as sharp as her humor, Broder explores--in prose that is both ballsy and beautiful, aggressively colloquial and achingly poetic--questions most of us are afraid to even acknowledge, let alone answer, in order to discover what it really means to be a person in this modern world.

Personal Essays

So Sad Today

Mal smith

Overall it was a great book. I found it fascinating that at times I found me and the author were almost identical in thought and then at others we couldn’t be more different. But either way, her words in this book touched a certain part of me. I’m not sure what exactly the emotions it stirred in me were, but I’m glad I read it. 

And just something to add: I’m not a heavy reader. I read MAYBE 2 books a year for pleasure. But this book makes me want to read more again. So I want to deeply thank the author for that.

Kelly Wynne

"Filled with an unmeasurable amount of existential dread, Broder’s humor makes difficult topics like her husband’s debilitating illness and letting go of an unfitting relationship seem manageable, yet fosters a sense of reality and the understanding that we all have struggles, and they can make life harder than we’d like to admit. Though humorous and enjoyable at many moments, So Sad Today is an easily relatable take on depression, anxiety and addiction and the ways these trials shape our deepest thoughts."

Read more here: http://www.justcutthebullshit.com/hom...

So sad today? Many are. Melissa Broder is too. How and why did she get to be so sad? And should she stay sad? She asks herself these questions over and over here, turning them into a darkly mesmerising and strangely uplifting reading experience through coruscating honesty and a total lack of self-deceit. Sexually confused, a recovering addict, suffering from an eating disorder and marked by one very strange sex fetish: Broder's life is full of extremes. But from her days working for a Tantric nonprofit in San Francisco to caring for a severely ill husband, there's no subject that Broder is afraid to write about, and no shortage of readers who can relate. When she started an anonymous Twitter feed @sosadtoday to express her darkest feelings, her unflinching frankness and twisted humour soon gained a huge cult following. In its treatment of anxiety, depression, illness, and instability; by its fearless exploration of the author's romantic relationships (romantic is an expanded term in her hands); and with its inventive imagery and deadpan humour, So Sad Today is radical. It is an unapologetic, unblinkingly intimate book that splays out a soul and a prose of unusual beauty. PRAISE FOR MELISSA BRODER ‘Broder’s essays often left me with a sharp sense of feminine recognition. I would read her accounts of heartbreak, sexual dissatisfaction, and alienation and think, Same …’ The New Yorker ‘Her writing … feels like a friend reaching out and saying “Hey, me too.”’ i-D

personal essays

Rereading for the second time and this book still holds a special place in my heart. Entertaining essays that does not bore me at all. Lots and lots of interesting sentences and quotes and even a whole paragraph that I highlighted and will visit from time to time. Though my judgment will stay the same that the vomit fetish ruined the whole experience, but the rest are great.

nindy

Jeannette Ordas

I read this because the author has anxiety and depression, just like me. But she also has addiction issues, an eating disorder, a vomit fetish and a penchant for twitter and sexting. The book is funny and graphic, but it's also doesn't get too deep if that makes any sense. 3.5 stars.

Micah

Melissa Broder's essays were very fun, quick, and exciting reads, and while I struggled through the fetish essay, you know the one, I did find it interesting nonetheless. Excellent humility, prose, and growth shown in the essays.

this is, to this day, the weirdest book i’ve read. and honestly i loved it

i’ve not read a lot of non-fiction but i’m starting to begin reading it and i’m glad i started here. melissa broder is so unhinged i love her so much , i hope she’s taking care of herself

i loved the essays, i loved their endings. i loved feeling understood by her sometimes. i love women being unapologetically themselves, makes me want to do it too

so glad i read this, and i can’t wait to reread it when i’m a bit older 

Victoria P

this is, to this day, the weirdest book i’ve read. and honestly i loved it

i’ve not read a lot of non-fiction but i’m starting to begin reading it and i’m glad i started here. melissa broder is so unhinged i love her so much , i hope she’s taking care of herself

i loved the essays, i loved their endings. i loved feeling understood by her sometimes. i love women being unapologetically themselves, makes me want to do it too

so glad i read this, and i can’t wait to reread it when i’m a bit older 

Courtney Woolery

I could not help but to devour this entire collection in one sitting. Highly recommend.

Archita Birla

i thought i would like this book so much more then i did — but similar to the siren, the way language is used and the way the book makes me feel is... not good

the author is extremely, intimately personal in a way that i normally find comforting and endearing but instead found offputting and disconcerting.

i found it okay to read, it certainly pushed me out of my comfort zone, but i wouldn’t read it again.

Georgia Carr

This is perhaps the most relatable book about mental illness I've ever read. I wanna highlight it all and put it on t shirts and get it tattooed. It's wonderful.

Mariana Afonso

3 stars.
Well written and narrated. The author shows an immense strength of character to be able to write from and about such vulnerable places. 
I found a few chapters to be great, extremely relatable and filled with a raw emotion. Others, I didn’t enjoy all that much, but I would say it is because I could not relate in any way to the situations or feelings behind the writing.

It induces some pertinent reflections and depicts very accurately what anxiety is, and what other conditions it brings, specially in the last chapter.

Blanca Gimenez

Weird and sometimes gross book but is one of those you have to finish. 
Talks about some taboos and actual things lots of people are going through.

Shannon O’Connor 

Okay this book is terrible but one of those terrible things you can’t look away from or put down. Like it’s funny and gross and i hated it sometimes but then i also hated myself for liking it. You’ll definitely take something away from reading it. It was given as a gift and honestly I wanna gift it to someone next.

"Unapologetically intimate essays on sex, death, mental illness, and other taboos by poet and writer Melissa Broder, the creator of @sosadtoday."--From cover.

Essence

Dorothy 

Lindsey Barnett

Catherine Jauch

From acclaimed poet and creator of the popular twitter account @SoSadToday comes the darkly funny and brutally honest collection of essays that Roxane Gay called "sad and uncomfortable and their own kind of gorgeous." Melissa Broder always struggled with anxiety. In the fall of 2012, she went through a harrowing cycle of panic attacks and dread that wouldn't abate for months. So she began @sosadtoday, an anonymous Twitter feed that allowed her to express her darkest feelings, and which quickly gained a dedicated following. In So Sad Today, Broder delves deeper into the existential themes she explores on Twitter, grappling with sex, death, love low self-esteem, addiction, and the drama of waiting for the universe to text you back. With insights as sharp as her humor, Broder explores--in prose that is both ballsy and beautiful, aggressively colloquial and achingly poetic--questions most of us are afraid to even acknowledge, let alone answer, in order to discover what it really means to be a person in this modern world.

So Sad Today Personal Essays

Reviews