“I loved Literally Me. Julie Houts is the satirist we've been waiting for. She deconstructs what it means to be a woman today with dark absurdist humor drawn to perfection. Brilliant.”
—Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter
Description
From Julie Houts aka @JooleeLoren, “Instagram’s favorite illustrator” (Vogue), a collection of darkly humorous illustrated essays that “perfectly capture what it’s like to be a woman in 2017” (BuzzFeed) and lampooning modern female identity in the social media age.
LIVE. LAUGH. LOVE. or EXIST. SMIRK. LURK.
Julie Houts has cultivated a devoted Instagram following by satirizing the conflicting messages and images women consume and share with the world every day.
Literally Me chronicles the exploits of “slightly antisocial heroines” (Refinery29) in vivid, excruciatingly funny detail, including:
—The beauty routine of a deranged bride who aspires to be “truly without flaws” on her wedding day
—What happens when Kylie Jenner has an existential crisis and can no longer “step out”
—A journey to Coachella by the Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse
—The true dating confessions of a fembot
—The terrifying description for Alice Staunch’s book How to Be a Perfect Feminist
—The diary of Fiddle Ficus, a tree that lives inside a C É L I N E store
…and much more.
Literally Me marks the launch of a brilliant new social satirist. Julie’s singular voice and beautiful illustrations reveal the truth about the absurdity of life in the social media age, showing us that the line between becoming a total “Girlboss” and a twenty-first century American Psycho is razor-thin.
Reviews
“[Houts] perfectly captures what it’s like to be a woman in 2017.”
—Buzzfeed
“Houts skewers high fashion, the wedding-industrial complex, Instagram fame, and more. . . .This is truly funny work, but there is a darkness underneath . . . Houts’s pithiness has earned her hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, and it is on full display here.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[Houts's] work is about the creating, and the unraveling, of modern female identity, specifically in the young, urban, and stylish sphere."
—Vogue