12/14/2015
In this delightful collection of 18 essays, Broder embarks on an earnest, sophisticated inquiry into the roots and expressions of her own sadness. Already known as a poet (Last Sext) and author of the @SoSadToday Twitter account, here she joins a new generation of essayists whose voices have been shaped by the conventions of digital communication. Quoting generously from chat logs and sexts, Broder’s deeply confessional writing brings disarming humor and self-scrutiny to secrets that include embarrassing sexual fantasies and her habit of eating a “whole pint of diet ice cream with six packets of Equal poured into it.” The essays span an impressive range of topics: abortion and the decision not to have children, substance abuse and sobriety, experiments with antidepressants, and monogamy with a chronically ill partner. They can occasionally border on the self-indulgent, but even during these rare lapses, Broder’s central insight is clear: it is okay to be sad, and our problems can’t be reduced to a single diagnosis. All of the essays are linked together by the art of learning to love oneself, sadness and all. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, DeFiore and Company. (Mar.)

"At once devastating and delightful, this deeply personal collection of essays (named for Broder's popular Twitter handle) is as raw as it is funny."—Cosmopolitan

"If her Twitter account is a darkly comic 'creative way to distract myself and cope,' as [Melissa Broder] describes it, then her essays are deeper excavations of that same mind."—Elle

"Broder may be talking about things like sexts, Botox, and crushes, but these things are considered alongside contemplations about mortality, identity, and the difficulty of finding substance in a world where sometimes it's so much easier to exist behind a screen."—The Fader

"Her writing is deeply personal, sophisticated in its wit, and at the same time, devastating. SO SAD TODAY is a portrait of modern day existence told with provocative, irreverent honesty."
—Nylon

"If Melissa Broder weren't so fucking funny I would have wept through this entire book. Love, sex, addiction, mental illness and childhood trauma all join hands and dance in a circle, to the tune of Melissa's unmatched wit and dementedly perfect take on this terrifying orb we call home."—LennyLetter.com

"Instead of supersizing her angsty tweets, Broder presents a dizzying array of intimate dispatches and confessions...She has a near-supernatural ability to not only lay bare her darkest secrets, but to festoon those secrets with jokes, subterfuge, deep shame, bravado, and poetic turns of phrase."—New York Magazine

"It would have been easy for Broder to stay anonymous and simply publish a book of @SoSadToday's most popular tweets, but instead, she chose to challenge herself in what turned out to be a triumph of unsettlingly relatable prose."—VanityFair.com

"Under her beloved Twitter persona So Sad Today, Broder is probably the Internet's most powerful merchant of feelings."—GQ.com

"SO SAD TODAY is a desperately honest collection of essays, the kind that make you cringe as you eagerly, shamelessly consume them. Melissa Broder lays herself bare but she does so with strength, savvy, and style. Above all, these essays are sad and uncomfortable and their own kind of gorgeous. They reveal so much about what it is to live in this world, right now."—Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist

"Melissa Broder's essays are as raw as an open vein."—Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood

"What a decadent, hilarious, important, devastating book this is. SO SAD TODAY will explode on impact in your mind."—Jami Attenberg, New York Times bestselling author of The Middlesteins and Saint Mazie

"With irreverence and wit, Melissa Broder confronts the most hidden and grotesque parts of herself...Reading her, it seems that we're all fucked-up, but it's because of this that we connect with each other, fall in love, find contentment, and maybe even a little happiness."—Sarah Gerard, author of Binary Star

"Irreverent, ballsy, impossible to put down. With courage and humor, Broder shows us that the underbelly of self-awareness is the existential sads."—Courtney Maum, author of I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You

"From the moment I started this book, I couldn't put it down. Melissa Broder GETS IT. This book takes the side effects of mental illness and makes them funny. Anyone who is battling with depression, anxiety, existential dread/crises, or just anyone who has a brain, should read this book."—Bethany Cosentino, Best Coast

"Broder writes about the hot-pink toxins inhaled every day by girls and women...and the seemingly impossible struggle to exhale something pure, maybe even eternal...there's a bleak beauty in the way she articulates her lowest moments."—Bookforum

"Delightful...Broder embarks on an earnest, sophisticated inquiry into the roots and expressions of her own sadness...deeply confessional writing brings disarming humor and self-scrutiny...Broder's central insight is clear: it is ok to be sad, and our problems can't be reduced to a single diagnosis."—Publishers Weekly

"Broder employs precise and provoking language to entice readers with essays that explore the all-consuming nature of technology, romance and relationships in the modern world...offer(ing) others who may be suffering a beacon of hope that each of us is not alone. More than a collection of essays, this memoir of sorts documents anxiety, hurt, and understanding with humor and heart."—Library Journal

"Vividly rendered and outspokenly delivered essays...Sordid, compulsively readable entries that lay bare a troubled soul painstakingly on the mend."—Kirkus Reviews

"An utterly bewitching book and... a thrillingly tangible account of what it is to be a human being, right here, right now. I loved it. So many staggering-and difficult-observations. So many beautiful turns of phrase. There aren't many writers who can stare into the abyss and report back with humour, panache, and a rich, gutsy spirit. Melissa Broder can. It's a book I'm going to read again, and talk about, and pass on."—Emma Jane, author of Animals

"If symptoms could write, they would sound a lot like Melissa Broder's SO SAD TODAY. Broder's angst is existential and pathological and filled with as many holes as there are things to fill it with...An insight into the perverse persistence of hope and humanity, even in the age of clickbait and online individualism."—Dr. Nina Power, author of One-Dimensional Woman

"Naysayers may dismiss Broder's Tweets "cute," but she gets it in a way they never will. That much is clear in her prose, and never has her prose been so bold, so naked and fearless."—Examiner.com

"The essays are personal and riveting...there is profound comfort to be found in being offered a glimpse into another person's struggles with anxiety and sadness."—Largehearted Boy

"Broder's essays often left me with a sharp sense of feminine recognition. I would read her accounts of heartbreak, sexual dissatisfaction, and alienation and think, Same..."—NewYorker.com

"Broder writes with the kind of honesty that can make you cringe and laugh, and then catch your breath, brought up short by a kind of existential dread."—Salon.com

"Her writing...feels like a friend reaching out and saying 'Hey, me too.'"—I-D

"Melissa Broder is undoubtedly one of the best essay stylists at work today...Broder's writing is funny and sober, her honesty uncomfortable and comforting, and reading her book is just like getting a text from your best friend...It's easy enough to say that So Sad Today is brutally honest, but there's a real kindness to Broder's honesty, too, the intimacy with which it beckons a reader's shy and tender heart. In Broder's company, we can dare to tremble at our own depths."—Ploughshares

"Her poignant (and at times profane) writing remains a wonderful antidote to a constant stream of other people's touted successes, delivered with generosity and without any judgment. This book is full of dirty secrets, all of which are transformed into something healing when they reach the light of day...The resulting collection is both gross and gorgeous, infused with explicit sexuality (content warning) and visceral ugliness, and often offers a perfect union of the two."—The Globe and Mail

"Broder's book is a reminder of how humor can spring organically from darkness—not as a result of sadness but in spite of it—and Broder is unusually gifted at harnessing its defensive power."—Slate.com

02/01/2016
Poet Broder's @SoSadToday Twitter feed began as an anonymous way for her to purge dark thoughts. Here, given far more than 140 characters to work with, Broder employs precise and provoking language to entice readers with essays that explore the all-consuming nature of technology, romance and relationships in the modern world, and what it means to be human. Her innermost secrets, which include an eating disorder, her sexual predilections, complete with a vomit fantasy, appear bizarre yet honest, so that one cannot help but feel a kinship to the author. Whether visiting a shaman or finding enlightenment through tantric yoga, Broder offers others who may be suffering a beacon of hope that each of us is not alone. More than a collection of essays, this memoir of sorts documents anxiety, hurt, and understanding with humor and heart. VERDICT Eloquent in its grittiness, this title will do well in modern literature collections, fitting in with the likes of Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy and Frank Warren's PostSecret.—Kaitlin Connors, Virginia Beach P.L.

2016-01-21
Depression, anxiety, panic disorder, and addiction all resonate in this outspoken collection of essays. Broder's (Scarecrone, 2014, etc.) collection of 18 provocative essays began in 2012 as a formerly anonymous Twitter account loaded with dark humor and downward mood swings. Since its unmasking, the author now fully embraces the peaks and valleys of her emotional landscape as she attempts to "fill my many insatiable internal holes with external stuff." Following a cursory glance at her upbringing, where "the religion of the household quickly became food," Broder admits to chronically chewing her nails and ingesting other bodily products to "find comfort...even in the darkest, most disgusting places." This graphic depiction of her youthful melancholy suitably sets the tone for the remainder of the essays, mostly overcast with angst yet punctuated with self-deprecating humor. The author lucidly describes her post-collegiate years living in Northern California, "melting down" in a whirlwind of alcohol, drugs, sexual experimentation, and employment in "a Tantric sex nonprofit." Some sections read like slam poetry, as when Broder ruminates about love, graphic sexting with an online flame, or the things that bring her shame. The answers to an Internet addiction quiz compellingly illuminate her innermost fears of death and rejection. The author digs even deeper as she unveils an odd affinity for nicotine gum, Botox, open marriage, and a fetish for vomit, something she believes taps into the "dark, untouched corners within all of us." While Effexor played an integral part, readers will also realize that Broder's tweets were just as instrumental in her sobriety. In these vividly rendered and outspokenly delivered essays, the author admits to being in better shape now than before, and "sending what I was feeling out into the universe" has become the ultimate wellness elixir. Sordid, compulsively readable entries that lay bare a troubled soul painstakingly on the mend.