How to Be a Good Girl - by Jamie Hood (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"An utterly compelling blend of lyricism, diary, and criticism that has become my go-to for invoking the brilliant trans-eye view of the agonies and pleasures of heterosexuality."--Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby and Stag Dance

In the thick of winter 2020, when so many books were buried beneath the catastrophe of the COVID-19 news cycle, one unlikely debut seemed to cut through the noise. Jamie Hood's How to Be a Good Girl was an inventive and hybrid work of self-making, mingling diary entries, poetry, literary criticism, and love letters to interrogate the archetype of the "good girl," and the ideas of femininity, passivity, desire, and trauma that come with it. Journeying from the ice age to our modern-day climate crisis, it devoured texts as expansive as Levinas and Plath to the Ronettes and after-school specials, all the while asking: what pound of flesh must a woman pay to be seen as "good."

How to Be a Good Girl was a critical darling when it was first published by Grieveland. The Rumpus praised its "bold vulnerability," and Vogue named it a Best Book of 2020. Now, Vintage is proud to reissue this provocative and genre-bending debut and find new readers for an exciting, new literary voice.

Review Quotes

"How to Be a Good Girl is an utterly compelling blend of lyricism, diary, and criticism that has become my go-to for invoking the brilliant trans-eye view of the agonies and pleasures of heterosexuality. Hood gives voice to ideas I don't know I need until she speaks."
--Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

"Style-wise, it's got the disjointed candor of Jenny Zhang's recent collection My Baby First Birthday and the detached eroticism of Melissa Broder's Last Sext, but another gift of Hood's is a literary uniqueness that discourages comparison."
--Vogue

About the Author