It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me

by Ariel Leve

Overview

“Ariel Leve is the love child of David Sedaris and Fran Leibowitz. An original and funny voice…. Insightful and sharp.”
— Joan Rivers

“Ariel Leve is brilliant and funny and the only other person I know without an oven. Buy this book and keep it close.”
— Bill Nighy

“Funny, smart, delightfully cranky”(AJ Jacobs) Ariel Leve’s Sunday Times Magazine (London) column “Cassandra” moves to book form. It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me offers a humorously bleak perspective on life’s potential to turn out badly… and Ariel’s innate ability to put the black cloud into the silver lining. This is a book for schadenfreude aficionados; for readers who identify with Cassandra’s slogan, “worrying is my yoga”; and for fans of Seinfeld, Ugly Betty, Sex & the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm, David Sedaris, Woody Allen, and New Yorker cartoons.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061864599
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/13/2010
Pages:	289
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Ariel Leve is an award-winning journalist who has written for the Guardian, Financial Times Magazine, the Telegraph, the Observer, and the London Sunday Times Magazine, where she was a senior writer and a columnist. At the British Press Awards she was short-listed twice for Interviewer of the Year and Highly Commended twice. Her books include It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me.

What People are Saying About This

Joan Rivers

“Ariel Leve is the love child of David Sedaris and Fran Leibowitz. An original and funny voice…The flip side of Sex and The City. Insightful and sharp—this is a very funny book written by a woman who knows how to laugh at herself and her insecurities.”

Bill Nighy

“Ariel Leve is brilliant and funny and the only other person I know without an oven. Buy this book and keep it close.”

A.J. Jacobs

“A funny, smart, delightfully cranky book about everything from Facebook to dating to Angelina Jolie’s dinner conversation. If Fran Leibowitz didn’t have her famed case of writer’s block, The Cassandra Chronicles is the kind of book she might publish.”

Editorial Reviews

Ariel Leve is brilliant and funny and the only other person I know without an oven. Buy this book and keep it close.” — Bill Nighy

“A funny, smart, delightfully cranky book about everything from Facebook to dating to Angelina Jolie’s dinner conversation. If Fran Leibowitz didn’t have her famed case of writer’s block, The Cassandra Chronicles is the kind of book she might publish.” — A.J. Jacobs

“Ariel Leve is the love child of David Sedaris and Fran Leibowitz. An original and funny voice…The flip side of Sex and The City. Insightful and sharp—this is a very funny book written by a woman who knows how to laugh at herself and her insecurities.” — Joan Rivers

From the Publisher

Ariel Leve is the love child of David Sedaris and Fran Leibowitz. An original and funny voice…The flip side of Sex and The City. Insightful and sharp—this is a very funny book written by a woman who knows how to laugh at herself and her insecurities.

Joan Rivers

Ariel Leve is brilliant and funny and the only other person I know without an oven. Buy this book and keep it close.

Bill Nighy

A funny, smart, delightfully cranky book about everything from Facebook to dating to Angelina Jolie’s dinner conversation. If Fran Leibowitz didn’t have her famed case of writer’s block, The Cassandra Chronicles is the kind of book she might publish.

A.J. Jacobs

A Debbie Downer pontificates on the minutiae of her daily life. Sunday Times Magazine contributor Leve apparently likes only two things: drinking coffee and talking on the phone. But even those things have their problems. She worries, for example, that the deli proprietor has customers to whom he pays more attention, or that he'll be disappointed in her when he delivers her order. Though she loves talking on the phone to close friends, she also acknowledges that she's much better over e-mail. Such is her essentially pleasureless existence, and in a series of short vignettes, she chronicles the things she hates-sunny Saturdays, dinner parties (in New York, though London ones are marginally better), most other parties, boyfriends, not having boyfriends, trying new things, surprises, giving gifts, wedding receptions and so on. She fantasizes about living alone in the middle of nowhere, so she doesn't have to interact with people, and quips that the best kind of boyfriend might be on death row-guaranteed to be a bigger loser than she is. A rampant hypochondriac, she frets about hair loss, complains about her gynecologist and, like the rest of America, has problems with her health insurance. There are witty moments, particularly the stories about her oddball cast of friends and acquaintances, but there's so much idle complaining to wade through that it's difficult to focus on them. The New York neurotic has always been a source of comedy, but even Woody Allen and Tina Fey are happy some of the time, which keeps them likable. A dour and narcissistic Seinfeldian exercise. Author events in New York. Agent: Tif Loehnis/Janklow & Nesbit

Kirkus Reviews