rules? we don't need no freakin' rules!

Ariel Levy had it all. And then she didn't. And then she wrote a book about that, The Rules Do Not Apply. 

When she was 38, Levy was married to her best friend. She was carrying their baby. She had financial security. She went to Mongolia to write a story for The New Yorker. And when she came back, she lost it all. She lost her baby. Her marriage dissolved. Everything she had worked for, everything she had counted on, it was all gone. Just like that. 

This emotional and wrenching memoir of love and loss, of choices and consequences, is beautifully written. It is lyrical and moving and will leave you in pieces on the floor. 

As a kid, Levy was always told that she was too--too loud, too active, too male, too much. She writes from this place of openness, and she spills out all of her intensity, all of her emotions, all of her self on these pages. She was never all that good at following the rules. She questioned them at every turn. It makes her a complex human being, and it makes her a transformative writer. I guarantee that the person you are at the beginning of this book will be different than the person who reads that last page. 

The Rules Do Not Apply is one of the most talked-about books of 2017. Levy's writing style and brutal openness make this book impossible to put down. Her courage in sharing this painful journey makes it a story of strength, of healing, of grief, and of our mutual humanity. Read this book and remember what it is to be truly alive. 

Galleys for The Rules Do Not Apply provided by Random House through NetGalley.com, with many thanks.