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    How to Murder Your Life: A Memoir
    How to Murder Your Life: A Memoir
    How to Murder Your Life: A Memoir
    Audiobook11 hours

    How to Murder Your Life: A Memoir

    Written by Cat Marnell

    Narrated by Cat Marnell

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    From the New York Times bestselling author and former beauty editor Cat Marnell, a “vivid, maddening, heartbreaking, very funny, chaotic” (The New York Times) 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 the 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 to seedy nightclubs, from doctors’ offices and mental hospitals, Marnell “treads a knife edge between glamorizing her own despair and rendering it with savage honesty.…with the skill of a pulp novelist” (The New York Times Book Review) what it is like to live in the wild, chaotic, often sinister world of a young female addict who can’t say no.

    Combining “all the intoxicating intrigue of a thriller and yet all the sobering pathos of a gifted writer’s true-life journey to recover her former health, happiness, ambitions, and identity” (Harper’s Bazaar), How to Murder Your Life is mesmerizing, revelatory, and necessary.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJan 31, 2017
    ISBN9781508229674
    Author

    Cat Marnell

    Cat Marnell is a Condé Nast drop-out and former beauty editor at Lucky and xoJane.com. She wrote the “Amphetamine Logic” column for Vice. How to Murder Your Life is her first book.

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    Reviews for How to Murder Your Life

    4/5

    143 ratings11 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Cat is a trainwreck you can't look away from and that is her morbid fascination but honestly that all gets a bit old. The writing is good but personality gets an F. She goes for the poor little rich girl thing but it's hard to empathize with someone so grossly privileged. Some can pull that off, like Elizabeth wurtzel for instance but cat just lacks the humility and inner reflection that makes writers like that so relatable. And that's the problem, she comes off as not at all relatable but instead as a spoiled drugged out brat most of the time. You get the impression that she wouldn't be doing hard drugs without the safety net of her wealth and privilege. At the end she seems to declare herself somewhat sober but there are no real lessons learned and she admits she is still using some substances. Her honesty is endearing and writing decent and she is funny but as a former addict myself I did not find her story relatable.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I’ve listened to this book twice already. It is so raw, honest, and makes me feel like I’m not alone. And I’m not a drug addict!

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Love, love, love Cat Marnell. What a weirdo! She’s so creative and campy and absurd. This girl should seriously consider a back up career as a voice actress or podcaster or something. Listening to her voice is legit addictive - lol excuse the wordplay.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Very entertaining. Even knowing something of Cat’s journalism you can’t presume the twists and turns of her journey so far.
      Make good choices Cat!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      This was pretty graphic, irreverent, and at times, funny. An engrossing account of her years-long addiction and the effect it had on her life and family.
    • 5/5
      At times disturbing & maddening, but very funny and well-written.
    • 5/5
      This will sound crazy as I have easily read 3 audiobooks per week this past year alone; however this incredibly real & raw genius book was by far the best I have read. EVER. I was actually dreading in a depression as I got to the last couple chapters. So much so that I went direct to instagram to tell Cat Marnell herself how much I will always be grateful to her for this gem she has given. Guess what? Within less than 24 hours she responded!!! The famous CAT … wrote back to me to thank me and give me a list of her favorites in must reads and I am star-struck I tell you !!! Best DAY … thank you Cat - you are so freaking brave (and also my twin in many ways)
      I wish and pray for so many great things in your very bright future. XXOO
      PS. No matter how many books you write, I promise this one will always stay next to my bed for life ☺️ love you cat !!!
      ginacat911 ✅
    • 5/5
      SOOOOO salacious, real, and provocative. I need a follow up.
    • 1/5
      Not only is the writing poor, the audio is disturbing. I have been an audio book listener since 2004. I have never heard such a loud and disturbing reading of a book. The noises the narrator/author makes do not enhance the story at all. I often listen to books to fall asleep, which is impossible with this narration because the narrator is continually screaming or making loud noises. Unbelievable. Don't waste your time.
    • 4/5
      This is a memoir of addiction and unlike most other stories of this type, it doesn't end with recovery. Cat Marnell starts taking pills (of all types) as a teenage in a New England boarding school. Her life quickly spirals out of control - she ends up pregnant and is expelled just weeks before graduation. Yet, her talent and ambition propels her into a remarkably successful career in magazine publishing. She rises to the post of beauty editor at a major publication - all while taking an astonishing number of drugs ranging from prescription medications to heroin and cocaine. She lands in rehab multiple times, family members stop talking to her, and she misses tons of work. This book didn't end the way I expected, but it did reach a kind of satisfy balance between ambition and addiction. Overall, a good read, even if the author's writing (name dropping celebrities and brands) did annoy me at times.
    • 4/5
      3.5 stars. Cat Marnell really lets you see what life as an addict is really like. There were so many times I was squirming in my seat because of the decisions she was making, or I guess I should say that her addiction was making. I was very uncomfortable at several points because you could see her life heading in very dangerous and scary direction, but it also felt very real. I really appreciated her candor when it came to her reality. I wish so badly she could have ended the book with a happier note but I guess that's not real life. I know some people have a problem with her writing style, but I enjoyed her conversational tone. It was fun and inviting and it made her feel all the more relatable. If you are into celebrity and fashion and gossip, you will probably enjoy this book because she delves into her life as a beauty editor and her experiences in the NYC fashion industry alongside her addiction to oh so many drugs.