The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir - Softcover

Levy, Ariel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812986679 ISBN 13: 9780812986679

Publisher: Random House Trade, 2018

Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A gorgeous memoir about a woman overcoming dramatic loss and finding reinvention

"Cheryl Strayed meets a Nora Ephron movie. You'll laugh, ugly cry, and finish it before the weekend's over."--theSkimm

One of Time's Top 10 Non-Fiction Books of the Year

When Ariel Levy left for a reporting trip to Mongolia in 2012, she was pregnant, married, financially secure, and successful on her own terms. A month later, none of that was true.

Levy picks you up and hurls you through the story of how she built an unconventional life and then watched it fall apart with astonishing speed. Like much of her generation, she was raised to resist traditional rules--about work, about love, and about womanhood.

In this "deeply human and deeply moving" (The New York Times Book Review) memoir, Levy chronicles the adventure and heartbreak of being, in her own words, "a woman who is free to do whatever she chooses." Her story of resilience becomes an unforgettable portrait of the shifting forces in our culture, of what has changed--and of what is eternal.

Praise for The Rules Do Not Apply

"Levy has the rare gift of seeing herself with fierce, unforgiving clarity. And she deploys prose to match, raw and agile. She plumbs the commotion deep within and takes the measure of her have-it-all generation."--The Atlantic

"[The Rules Do Not Apply] is a short, sharp American memoir in the Mary Karr tradition of life-chronicling. Which is to say that Levy, like Karr, is a natural writer who is also as unsparing and bleakly hilarious as it's possible to be about oneself. . . . I devoured her story in one sitting."--Financial Times

"It's an act of courage to hunt for meaning within grief, particularly if the search upends your life and shakes out the contents for all the world to sift through. Ariel Levy embarks on the hunt beautifully in her new memoir."--Chicago Tribune

"I read it in one big messy gulp, because it is beautiful and heartbreaking and unruly and real. You should preorder it immediately so you can fall into her complicated, funny, and finely wrought world as soon as humanly possible."--Lenny.com

"A thoroughly modern memoir, the elements of The Rules Do Not Apply seem plucked not from the script of Girls, which has also been exploring reproductive issues of late, but Transparent--even Portlandia."--The New York Times

"Frank and unflinchingly sincere . . . A gut-wrenching, emotionally charged work of soul-baring writing in the spirit of Joan Didion, Helen Macdonald, and Elizabeth Gilbert, The Rules Do Not Apply is a must-read for women."--Bustle

"Unflinching and intimate, wrenching and revelatory, Ariel Levy's powerful memoir about love, loss, and finding one's way shimmers with truth and heart on every page."--Cheryl Strayed

"Every deep feeling a human is capable of will be shaken loose by this profound book. Ariel Levy has taken grief and made art out of it."--David Sedaris

"Ariel Levy is a writer of uncompromising honesty, remarkable clarity, and surprising humor gathered from the wreckage of tragedy. Her account of life doing its darnedest to topple her, and her refusal to be knocked down, will leave you shaken and inspired. I am the better for having read this book."--Lena Dunham

About this title

Review

"Ariel Levy's 2013 essay 'Thanksgiving in Mongolia' is one of the best pieces of nonfiction I have ever read. If I taught a class on the essay, I would make every damn student memorize it. Levy, a staff writer at The New Yorker, has expanded on this essay into a full memoir out in March, The Rules Do Not Apply. I read it in one big messy gulp, because it is beautiful and heartbreaking and unruly and real. You should preorder it immediately so you can fall into her complicated, funny, and finely wrought world as soon as humanly possible."--Lenny.com

"The Rules Do Not Apply is this year's must-read memoir."--W

"A thoroughly modern memoir, the elements of The Rules Do Not Apply seem plucked not from the script of Girls, which has also been exploring reproductive issues of late, but Transparent--even Portlandia."--The New York Times

"In reflecting on her own life, Levy's tone is deeply honest, and at the same time manages to not be defensive or apologetic about her decisions; she's not judgmental, but remains highly inquisitive. It's a delicate balance, one rarely pulled off. The through line is her struggle to see things as accurately as possible, to translate her gift for interview and narrative into something personally productive. . . . I loved Levy's book, and have followed her work for years, which made interviewing her a slight struggle. I had to navigate around what personally resonated with me and what would mean a great deal to other. . . . If you take anything away from our conversation, I hope it's that you should read The Rules Do Not Apply."--Jezebel

"Frank and unflinchingly sincere . . . A gut-wrenching, emotionally charged work of soul-baring writing in the spirit of Joan Didion, Helen Macdonald, and Elizabeth Gilbert, The Rules Do Not Apply is a must-read for women."--Bustle

"Levy has the rare gift of seeing herself with fierce, unforgiving clarity. And she deploys prose to match, raw and agile. She plumbs the commotion deep within and takes the measure of her have-it-all generation."--The Atlantic

"Cheryl Strayed meets a Nora Ephron movie. You'll laugh, ugly cry, and finish it before the weekend's over."--theSkimm

"[The Rules Do Not Apply] is a short, sharp American memoir in the Mary Karr tradition of life-chronicling. Which is to say that Levy, like Karr, is a natural writer who is also as unsparing and bleakly hilarious as it's possible to be about oneself. . . . I devoured her story in one sitting. It felt, well, greedy. But 'greedy' is how the author characterises herself, so it seemed fine, hopeful even, to read her work in the same way, perhaps absorbing as I went a tiny bit of Levy's remarkable resilience and appetite for life."--Financial Times

"It's an act of courage to hunt for meaning within grief, particularly if the search upends your life and shakes out the contents for all the world to sift through. Ariel Levy embarks on the hunt beautifully in her new memoir. . . . The Rules Do Not Apply is a search for meaning, not reason. It doesn't seek an explanation (outside of the medical one) for the death of Levy's son, any more than it seeks to explain away the love, fear, frustration and other experiences and emotions that take place within her lifetime. Her grief becomes a new part of her--something to understand and get used to. . . . She's brave and generous to share her story, which manages to be beautiful, even as it's stark and wrenching."--Chicago Tribune

"I read The Rules Do Not Apply in one long, rapt sitting. Unflinching and intimate, wrenching and revelatory, Ariel Levy's powerful memoir about love, loss, and finding one's way shimmers with truth and heart on every page."--Cheryl Strayed

"Every deep feeling a human is capable of will be shaken loose by this profound book. Ariel Levy has taken grief and made art out of it."--David Sedaris

"Ariel Levy is a writer of uncompromising honesty, remarkable clarity, and surprising humor gathered from the wreckage of tragedy. Her account of life doing its darnedest to topple her, and her refusal to be knocked down, will leave you shaken and inspired. I am the better for having read this book."--Lena Dunham

"A great memoir is not a trip through someone else's life but a series of long looks into your own. Ariel Levy's book--grieving, hopeful, painful, funny--is that."--Amy Bloom

"It's become a truism that feminists are living out our mothers' unlived lives. But Ariel Levy seems to be living out the unlived lives of an entire generation of women, simultaneously. Free to do whatever she chooses, she chooses everything. While reinventing work, marriage, family, pregnancy, sex, and divorce for herself from the ground up, Levy experiences devastating loss. And she recounts it all here with searing intimacy and an unsentimental yet openhearted rigor."--Alison Bechdel

"The Rules Do Not Apply is heartbreaking, brilliant, and disarming, the kind of book that may change you. Ariel Levy writes with a beauty that is ferociously honest and with the fervor of an explorer. No one else has written so insightfully about the current legacy of feminism's 'lavish gift' of freedom. Levy has a voice unlike any other. This is a devastating and inspired book."--René Steinke

Book Description

The new book by New Yorker journalist and author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0812986679
• ISBN 13: 9780812986679
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240