8 hand-picked essays/criticism and personal essays books curated by NextBookAfter.
You loved Untamed's permission to stop performing—now Hood Feminism hands you the blueprint for what comes after. Mikki Kendall dismantles glossy book-club feminism with the same unflinching honesty Doyle brought to breaking cages, but here the wild animal is intersectional rage that centers food insecurity, healthcare deserts, and survival—not just self-actualization. This is empowerment as infrastructure, not aesthetic.
Tanqueray hooked you with its no-holds-barred dive into chaos, scandal, and survival—stories that refused to apologize or polish up the mess. Samantha Irby delivers that same defiant energy with essays that turn social disasters and bodily failures into raunchy comedic gold, swapping inspirational fluff for bar-stool confessions that punch you with truth and make you laugh until you ugly-cry.
John Green taught you to rate the mundane with whimsical precision, finding profundity in trivial subjects while confronting the Anthropocene's contradictions with humor and raw vulnerability. You loved those late-night-conversation essays that made anxiety feel less isolating, that intellectual curiosity without the lecture, that refusal to offer easy answers while making you feel deeply seen in the chaos.
If Citizen made you crave literature that refuses comfort, Thick delivers that same visceral punch. Tressie McMillan Cottom dissects beauty politics, capitalism's lies, and systemic violence through essays that fuse academic rigor with gut-level emotion—genre-defying, unflinching, and impossible to shake.
Ruby Tandoh gave you permission to reject diet culture's lies and embrace food's chaotic joy. Now find that same righteous fury applied to Instagram fakery, boutique fitness cults, and the self-optimization traps we can't escape—all with the intimate honesty of a 2 a.m. text from your wittiest friend who sees through every scam.
If Want let you eavesdrop on anonymous fantasy, Wanting extends the permission—but the voices sign their names. A chorus of essayists swap shock for forensic honesty, exploring why they crave what they crave: aging bodies, kink grammar, poly-curious reflections, and domestic ache across queer, trans, and cis experience. Same nonjudgmental container, same mosaic you can binge, but with prose that gives you language for private wants you didn't know you could speak aloud.
Pulphead hooked you with Sullivan's sharp dives into American absurdity, blending wry humor and eccentric characters in overlooked cultural corners. Tim Kreider's We Learn Nothing echoes that magic, turning personal failures and societal quirks into mythic, melancholy tales with self-deprecating wit. Perfect for overeducated underachievers craving non-preachy insights on identity and irony.
If Dolly Alderton made you feel seen in your messiest romantic disasters and quarter-life spirals, Samantha Irby will validate every chaotic decision you've survived with the same unflinching honesty about bodies, bad dates, and the friendships that actually show up when love implodes. This is brutally funny personal wreckage that celebrates platonic bonds over romantic delusions, skewering millennial anxieties without pretending therapy fixed everything or adulthood means having answers instead of better jokes.