How to Murder Your Life
BY
Cat Marnell
From Cat Marnell, “New York’s enfant terrible” (The Telegraph), a candid and darkly humorous memoir of prescription drug addiction and self-sabotage, set in the glamorous world of fashion magazines and downtown nightclubs.
At twenty-six, Cat Marnell was an associate beauty editor at Lucky, one of the top fashion magazines in America—and that’s all most people knew about her. But she hid a secret life. She was a prescription drug addict. She was also a “doctor shopper” who manipulated Upper East Side psychiatrists for pills, pills, and more pills; a lonely bulimic who spent hundreds of dollars a week on binge foods; a promiscuous party girl who danced barefoot on banquets; a weepy and hallucination-prone insomniac who would take anything—anything—to sleep.
This is a tale of self-loathing, self-sabotage, and yes, self-tanner. It begins at a posh New England prep school—and with a prescription for Attention Deficit Disorder medication Ritalin. It continues to New York, where we follow Marnell’s amphetamine-fueled rise from intern to editor through the beauty departments of NYLON, Teen Vogue, Glamour, and Lucky. We see her fight between ambition and addiction and how, inevitably, her disease threatens everything she worked so hard to achieve.
From the Condé Nast building (where she rides the elevator alongside Anna Wintour) to seedy nightclubs, from doctors’ offices and mental hospitals, Marnell shows—like no one else can—what it is like to live in the wild, chaotic, often sinister world of a young female addict who can’t say no.
Combining lightning-rod subject matter and bold literary aspirations, How to Murder Your Life is mesmerizing, revelatory, and necessary.
At twenty-six, Cat Marnell was an associate beauty editor at Lucky, one of the top fashion magazines in America—and that’s all most people knew about her. But she hid a secret life. She was a prescription drug addict. She was also a “doctor shopper” who manipulated Upper East Side psychiatrists for pills, pills, and more pills; a lonely bulimic who spent hundreds of dollars a week on binge foods; a promiscuous party girl who danced barefoot on banquets; a weepy and hallucination-prone insomniac who would take anything—anything—to sleep.
This is a tale of self-loathing, self-sabotage, and yes, self-tanner. It begins at a posh New England prep school—and with a prescription for Attention Deficit Disorder medication Ritalin. It continues to New York, where we follow Marnell’s amphetamine-fueled rise from intern to editor through the beauty departments of NYLON, Teen Vogue, Glamour, and Lucky. We see her fight between ambition and addiction and how, inevitably, her disease threatens everything she worked so hard to achieve.
From the Condé Nast building (where she rides the elevator alongside Anna Wintour) to seedy nightclubs, from doctors’ offices and mental hospitals, Marnell shows—like no one else can—what it is like to live in the wild, chaotic, often sinister world of a young female addict who can’t say no.
Combining lightning-rod subject matter and bold literary aspirations, How to Murder Your Life is mesmerizing, revelatory, and necessary.
Amazon Link:
My 4 star review
First I want to start by
saying Cat Marnell is flipping amazing and I am sure it took of hell of a lot
of courage to write this book. This book had all of my attention and I am
extremely shocked that this is her first book. I loved how she talked at me
with her words.
I will be honest and say
that I just wanted to jump in these pages and save her. Hell, I wanted to slap
her and make her realize her failures too. I stopped reading this book a couple
of times to tell my husband what was happening. I couldn't believe some of the things
that I was reading, "I was like OMG is this stuff even real."
Does this really happen to
people?! I mean really...boarding school, crazy weekend parties, orgies, Adderall,
crack, heroin, PCP, Xanax, and so much more.
Now I actually read other
people's reviews and I was shocked about the things they were saying. I mean
really people why do you have to be so RUDE! To be honest do we really care
that she is privileged....um not really! Who cares that she had both parents in
her life! Who cares that she had a fabulous life on the outside!
I think that she is pretty
damn brave to put her life down on paper for us to read. My heart broke for
her. I mean she let us into her past, her secrets, her family, her life and the
best part is.....Some girl/guy could be reading this book higher than a
butterflying kite and sit there and think....Wow! She is not perfect and she is
trying to get better. If she can do it then just maybe I can do it to.
So again don't ever judge a
person because you have no idea what is happening to them behind closed doors.
While reading this book was nonstop listening to Courtney Love and here is a song that would be my theme song for this book.
About the Author:
CAT MARNELL was a beauty editor at LUCKY magazine. She also worked in the beauty departments of NY/LON, TEEN VOGUE, and GLAMOUR magazines. She wrote the 'Amphetamine Logic' column for VICE and was a founding editor of Jane Pratt's website xoJane.com. Cat lives in downtown New York City. 'How To Murder Your Life' is her first book.
