The Rules Do Not Apply A Memoir

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “This Year’s Must-Read Memoir” (W magazine) about the choices a young woman makes in her search for adventure, meaning, and love

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
Vogue • Time • Esquire • Entertainment Weekly • The Guardian • Harper’s Bazaar • Library Journal • NPR

All her life, Ariel Levy was told that she was too fervent, too forceful, too much. As a young woman, she decided that becoming a writer would perfectly channel her strength and desire. She would be a professional explorer—“the kind of woman who is free to do whatever she chooses.” Levy moved to Manhattan to pursue her dream, and spent years of adventure, traveling all over the world writing stories about unconventional heroines, following their fearless examples in her own life.

But when she experiences unthinkable heartbreak, Levy is forced to surrender her illusion of control. In telling her story, Levy has captured a portrait of our time, of the shifting forces in American culture, of what has changed and what has remained. And of how to begin again.

Praise for The Rules Do Not Apply

“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

“Beautifully crafted . . . This book is haunting; it is smart and engaging. It was so engrossing that I read it in a day.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Levy’s wise and poignant memoir is the voice of a new generation of women, full of grit, pathos, truth, and inspiration. Being in her presence is energizing and ennobling. Reading her deep little book is inspiring.”—San Francisco Book Review

“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

Also in This Series

Grouping Information

Grouped Work ID	5fe02a78-e5ce-e320-1930-f767fc65a53b
Grouping Title	rules do not apply
Grouping Author	ariel levy
Grouping Category	book
Grouping Language	English (eng)
Last Grouping Update	2023-01-30 04:00:50AM
Last Indexed	2023-01-30 04:53:20AM

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Levy, Ariel

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-- "I wanted what we all want: everything. We want a mate who feels like family and a lover who is exotic, surprising. We want to be youthful adventurers and middle-aged mothers. We want intimacy and autonomy, safety and stimulation, reassurance and novelty, coziness and thrills. But we can?t have it all." In this profound and beautiful memoir, Levy chronicles the adventure and heartbreak of being "a woman who is free to do whatever she chooses." Her own story of resilience becomes an unforgettable portrait of the shifting forces in our culture, of what has changed?and of what is eternal. --?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."--?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." -- The Rules Do Not Apply?Ren? Steinke. A "New Yorker" staff writer shares a hopeful memoir of her own experiences with devastating loss to council fellow survivors about the healing aspects of accepting difficult life challenges that are beyond one's control. "A gorgeous, darkly humorous memoir for readers of Cheryl Strayed about a woman overcoming dramatic loss and finding reinvention, as well as a portrait of a generation used to assuming they're entitled to everything--based on this award-winning writer's New Yorker article 'Thanksgiving in Mongolia'"-- "In 2012, at age 38, when she left on a reporting trip to Mongolia, Ariel Levy thought she had figured it out: she was married, pregnant, successful on her own terms, financially secure. A month later, none of that was true. 'People have been telling me since I was a little girl that I was too fervent, too forceful, too much. I thought I had harnessed the power of my own strength and greed and love to a life that could contain it. But it has exploded.' In gorgeous, moving, humorous, sharp, and unforgettable prose, with pointillist portraits of a girl and then a young woman coming of age, Levy describes her own ill-fated assumptions: thinking that anything is possible, that the old rules do not apply; that marriage doesn't have to mean monogamy; that gender and sexuality are fluid; that aging doesn't have to mean infertility. This is a searing story, written with humor, brilliance, and insight, that is at once personal and universal--a story about realizing that life is so often beyond our control, and how we forge ahead despite that. In telling her own story, Levy has captured a portrait of our time, of the shifting forces in values, women and gender in American culture, of what has changed and what has remained"--

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eBook

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9780525491965
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2017

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Books on Tape
Random House
Random House Publishing Group

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Autobiographies
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
Biography
Biography & Autobiography
Electronic books
Lesbians
Lesbians -- United States -- Biography
Levy, Ariel -- Marriage
Levy, Ariel, -- 1974-
Levy, Ariel, -- 1974- -- Marriage
Life change events
Life change events -- United States
Marriage
Miscarriage
Miscarriage -- United States
Nonfiction
PSYCHOLOGY & PSYCHIATRY|Grief & Loss
Psychology
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Lesbian Studies
Sex role
Sex role -- United States
Sociology
United States
Women journalists
Women journalists -- United States -- Biography
Young women
Young women -- United States -- Biography

title_display

The Rules Do Not Apply A Memoir

title_full

The Rules Do Not Apply : a Memoir / Levy, Ariel
The Rules Do Not Apply A Memoir

title_short

The Rules Do Not Apply

title_sub

A Memoir

topic_facet

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
Biography & Autobiography
Lesbians
Levy, Ariel
Life change events
Marriage
Miscarriage
Nonfiction
PSYCHOLOGY & PSYCHIATRY|Grief & Loss
Psychology
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Lesbian Studies
Sex role
Sociology
Women journalists
Young women

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