Everything Is Going to Be Great

An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour

Description

“Shukert's sharp comic turns careen smack into the middle of our hearts.”


— Los Angeles Times

 

Everything Is Going to Be Great, is performer, playwright, comedian, and author Rachel Shukert’s hilarious memoir of traveling through Europe in her twenties. She chronicles her youthful navigation through the haphazard fun and debauchery of new freedoms, and the growing pains that ultimately accompany “adulthood.” Fans of Sloane Crosley and David Sedaris are going to love Shulkert’s story, and her sharp, smart humor.


What happens when your grand European tour of self-discovery ends with a broken nose, a stolen wallet, and several questionable romantic choices?


  • A Disastrous Grand Tour: Follow Shukert from a drunken Bastille Day celebration that ends in a Parisian hospital to the baffling streets of Amsterdam, where she navigates questionable holiday traditions and even more questionable men.
  • Laugh-Out-Loud Humorous Essays: Each chapter reads like a standalone story, packed with the kind of sharp wit and cringe-worthy honesty that turns a series of terrible decisions—like going home with a stranger you *think* is European—into comedy gold.
  • Unfiltered Twenty-Something Life: A candid look at being young, broke, and ambitious, capturing the existential dread and dark humor of navigating early adulthood with no money and absolutely no plan.
  • Expat Life in Europe: From accidentally swallowing a dental crown to finding a job promoting a comedy club, this is a hilarious deep-dive into the absurd realities of living and working abroad in the early 2000s.

About the author(s)

Rachel Shukert is a playwright, performer, and the author of Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories. Her writing has appeared in McSweeney's and Heeb, and on Salon, Slate, Gawker, Nerve, and The Daily Beast, as well as featured on National Public Radio and in numerous print anthologies. Shukert was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, and now lives in New York City with her husband and her bipolar cat.

Reviews

Praise for Have You No Shame: “Shukert’s sharp comic turns careen smack into the middle of our hearts. As in Lorrie Moore’s stories . . . we feel a deep compassion through our laughter.” - Los Angeles Times

“Rachel Shukert’s memoir is more than just ‘girl-gone-overseas’; it’s a hilarious, brave and surprisingly piercing work of art.” - Diablo Cody, Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Juno

“If you read only one memoir by a disaffected, urban, 20-something Jewish girl this year, make it this one. Shukert rocks the lulav.” - Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan

“Everything Is Going to Be Great is full of smartly observed cultural detail, sexual misadventure, heartbreak, and helpful tips. This outrageous and hilarious memoir will make you laugh, gasp, and occasionally squirm—sometimes all three at once. A weird and wonderful read.” - J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Commencement

“Shukert is a hugely funny, wildly smart, and menacingly original writer. I don’t much care for leaving the house, but if I were ever to travel, I’d want to do it in book form and alongside Rachel, who has one billion crazy stories set in foreign lands, all beautifully told.” - Julie Klausner, author of I Don’t Care About Your Band

“A great summer read for anyone who likes funny ladies—or who has a friend who is threatening to give it all up to teach English in Prague. This should stop them cold.” - The Daily Beast

“[Shukert’s] wit is pitch-perfect and amusingly self-conscious….The story itself spans continents, but the consistency with which Shukert perceives everything anchors and enlivens wherever her antics land her.” - Nylon Magazine

“Rachel Shukert manages to do something almost unprecedented in the female travelogue subgenre: she is funny.” - The New Yorker

“The humor with which [Shukert] recounts her experiences allows her work to transcend beyond the cliché of overseas-love-affairs-gone-awry….An entertaining and often laugh-out-loud—though not altogether atypical—story of soul-searching abroad.” - Kirkus Reviews

“Shukert possesses a certain talent to find the funny in almost any situation, and her shockingly personal and irreverent writing makes for many laughs, but not at the cost of losing our sympathy in the face of her deepest disappointments.…[an] entertaining and very current meditation on what it means to be a young American artist abroad.” - Booklist

“Shukert possesses a certain talent to find the funny in almost any situation, and her shockingly personal and irreverent writing makes for many laughs….[an] entertaining and very current meditation on what it means to be a young American artist abroad.” - Booklist

“[Everything is Going to be Great] comes off like a cross between David Sedaris and Chuck Palahniuk….lurking beneath the jabs and one-liners is an affecting—and pretty unforgettable—coming-of-age tale.” - Entertainment Weekly

“Rachel Shukert’s new memoir Everything Is Going To Be Great does something unfortunately rare in women’s writing: celebrating mistakes….what Everything affirms is that screwing up from time to time—or even a lot—doesn’t make you a terrible person.” - Jezebel

“Thoroughly enjoyable.” - Time Out New York

More by Rachel Shukert

More Essays

More History

More World

More Women

More History

More Topic

More Humor

More All Other Nonfiction

More Essays & Travelogues

More Travel

More Western

More Europe

More Great Britain

More Historical

More Biography & Autobiography

More Personal Memoirs

More Women

More Rich & Famous

More Women Authors

More Literary Collections

More All Other Fiction

More Travel