Notes to Self

Essays

By: Emilie Pine

Narrated by: Emilie Pine

The international sensation that illuminates the experiences women are supposed to hide - from addiction, anger, sexual assault, and infertility to joy, sensuality, and love.

Winner of the An Post Irish Book of the Year.

“Emilie Pine’s voice is razor-sharp and raw; her story is utterly original yet as familiar as my own breath.” (Glennon Doyle, number one New York Times best-selling author of Love Warrior)

In this dazzling debut, Emilie Pine speaks to the events that have marked her life - those emotional disruptions for which our society has no adequate language, at once bittersweet, clandestine, and ordinary. She writes with radical honesty on the unspeakable grief of infertility, on caring for an alcoholic parent, on taboos around female bodies and female pain, on sexual violence and violence against the self. This is the story of one woman and of all women.

Devastating, poignant, and wise - and joyful against the odds - Notes to Self is an unforgettable exploration of what it feels like to be alive and a daring act of rebellion against a society that is more comfortable with women’s silence.

Praise for Notes to Self:

“Notes to Self begins as a deceptively simple catalogue of the injustices of modern female life and slyly emerges as a screaming treatise on just what it means to make your own rules, turning the hand you’ve been dealt into the coolest game in town. Emilie Pine is like your best friend - if your best friend was so sharp she drew blood.” (Lena Dunham, number-one New York Times best-selling author of Not That Kind of Girl)

“To read these essays is to understand the human condition more clearly, to reassess one’s place in the world, and to reclaim one’s own experiences as real and valid.” (Sunday Independent)

“Harrowing, clear-eyed.... Everyone should consider [this] priority reading.” (Sunday Business Post)

“Incredible and insightful - an absolute must-read.” (The Skinny)

“Agonizing, uncompromising, starkly brilliant.... [A] short, gleamingly instructive book, both memoir and psychological exploration - a platform for that insistent internal voice that almost any woman...wishes they had ignored.” (Financial Times)

“Do not read this book in public. It will make you cry.” (Anne Enright)

©2019 Emilie Pine (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Emilie Pine’s voice is razor-sharp and raw; her story is utterly original yet as familiar as my own breath. Both timeless and urgent, Notes to Self is my favorite memoir of the year - I will be giving copies of this stunning book to all of my friends.” (Glennon Doyle, number-one New York Times best-selling author of Love Warrior)

“Having read the first essay of these six personal pieces, you will spend the next few days telling people about it.... Such is the strength of the opening essay that, were it followed by 150 blank pages, this book would still be worth buying. As it turns out, the second inclusion, ‘From the Baby Years,’ is equally strong - I cried twice reading it.... She learns to speak of rape and menstrual blood, to look at and appreciate her body, to stop mistaking femininity for weakness.... Pine is fascinating and relatable throughout. As soon as you think you know her, she reveals another side.... I have already recommended this to several people. And I’m doing the same here.” (The Sunday Times)

"Emilie Pine’s collection of essays, Notes to Self, is light on its feet and goes in deep - family, class, the ways in which women are scared into silence." (Deborah Levy, best-selling author of Swimming Home and The Cost of Living)

Top notch

A beautifully written, poignant memoir made even better by the author’s expert narration. Highly recommend

So compelling and brave, Pine is masterful

A complete and total pleasure from start to finish. Pine is an incredibly brave and compelling teller of her own story. The writing is honest, straightforward, and raw. Pine does an excellent job of narrating and bringing the stories and essays to life in her own voice. A must read that sets the bar for memoir high.

Beautifully female

Compelling. Struck right to my heart. While I don't know Emilie and she lives an ocean away, I some how feel very seen by her. After all, that's all most of us really want in life. She sees. And the way she writes about what she sees makes me feel she sees through all the crap and right into my own eyes.