Choose Your Own Disaster by Dana Schwartz (2018)

Hilariously and descriptively subtitled: A. A Memoir, B. A Personality Quiz, C. A Mostly True and Completely Honest Look at One Young Woman's Attempt to Find Herself, D. All of the Above.

This millennial memoir is written in a cute Choose Your Own Adventure style and the writing transcends the gimmick. Quirky look at being in one's twenties and modern feminism.

Schwartz gained fame as the creator of @GuyInYourMFA on Twitter and I'm adding her book The White Man's Guide to White Male Writers of the Western Canon to my read-now list. 

Can't Help Myself by Meredith Goldstein (2018)

I was listening to Goldstein's podcast called Love Letters, and decided to check out her book. Despite being a single woman unlucky in love, Goldstein began writing an advice column at the Boston Globe, which took off. Two things I love: romance and giving advice.

A nice blend of advice letters and her answers, combined with a memoir about her unluckiness in love and her mother's death from cancer. A bit slight but well-done.

The Real Thing by Ellen McCarthy (2015)

Subtitled: Lessons on Love and Life from a Wedding Reporter's Notebook.

McCarthy had the wedding beat at the Washington Post, and shares what she's learned from heaps and heaps of couples over the years. Divided into Dating, Commitment and Breakups, and including stories from her own life, this is a charming collection that includes gentle dating and love advice with tons of real-world examples (and a few schadenfreudeish examples too--which are the best!) This is a very sweet, sensible, and a little inspirational addition to the love and marriage section. 

Available by Matteson Perry (2016)

Subtitled: A Memoir of Heartbreak, Hookups, Love and Brunch, this is a pretty adorable memoir of one guy's dating adventures in L.A., complete with regular brunch with his guy friends.

Perry is a Moth storyteller, and his book is pretty funny. I like that it doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is. It doesn't pretend to be the last word in insight into relationships, but it does give pretty interesting insight into dating.

A few quotes I loved:

 "Even buying condoms for the first time terrified me. I worried that Porcelain baby Matteson would go into the store and say, "One box of sexual condoms, please," and the clerk would laugh. "Oh no, I can't sell you those. Not only are you too young to have sex, but I can tell you're also not cool enough." (p. 24)  

Perry on his first time:

"In real life, we couldn't even get started. I'd thought it would be kind of like two magnets, that once our equipment got close enough they'd automatically pull together. Nope. I was thrusting blindly, as if I were playing an easy-looking carnival game that is actually impossible. And neither of us knew we could use our hands down there. I guess we thought sex had the same rules as soccer." (p. 27) 

And something I identify with:

"Approximately 80% of my advice is unsolicited." (p. 191)