Once I Was Cool: Personal Essays
English
By (author): Megan Stielstra
With conversational flourishes and on-the-mark descriptions, Stielstra's essays evoke the richness of her everyday life and the memories that are never far away. She remembers learning how to shoot a gun, a cancer scare, and-in a piece that was anthologized in The Best American Essays 2013-the time she eavesdropped on another new mother using her son's baby monitor. 'I shouldn't have listened,' she writes. 'But it was the first time since my son was born that I didn't feel alone.' Combining footnotes, electric sentences, and uproariously funny anecdotes (have you ever run into an ex while rolling on ecstasy?), Stielstra shows us that maturity is demanding, but its rewards are a gift. See more