Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and you too!

Written by Chelsea Handler

Narrated by Chelsea Handler

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “This will be one of your favorite books of all time. Through her intensely vulnerable, honest, and hilarious reflections, Chelsea shows us more than just her insides. She shows us ourselves.”—Amy Schumer
 
Don’t miss Chelsea Handler’s new Netflix stand-up special, Revolution, now streaming!
 
In the wake of President Donald Trump’s election, feeling that her country—her life—has become unrecognizable, Chelsea Handler has an awakening. Fed up with the privileged bubble she’s lived in, she decides it’s time to make some changes.
 
She embarks on a year of self-sufficiency and goes into therapy, prepared to do the heavy lifting required to make sense of a childhood that ended abruptly with the death of her brother. She meets her match in an earnest, nerdy shrink who dissects her anger and gets her to confront her fear of intimacy. Out in the world, she channels her outrage into social action and finds her voice as an advocate for change. With the love and support of an eccentric cast of friends, assistants, family members (alive and dead), and a pair of emotionally withholding rescue dogs, Chelsea digs deep into the trauma that shaped her inimitable worldview and unearths some glittering truths that light up the road ahead. 
 
Thrillingly honest and insightful, Chelsea Handler’s darkly comic memoir is also a clever and sly work of inspiration that gets us to ask ourselves what really matters in our own lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9780525638742

Chelsea Handler

Chelsea Handler is an accomplished stand-up comic and actress, as well as the bestselling author of My Horizontal Life. She was the star of her own late-night show on E!, Chelsea Lately; was one of the stars of Girls Behaving Badly; has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with David Letterman; and has starred in her own half-hour Comedy Central special. Chelsea makes regular appearances in comedy clubs across America and lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews for Life Will Be the Death of Me

[ladypembroke · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is raw and open and honest. Unabashedly so. Handler details her time in therapy last year, and how her oldest brother's death, when she was nine, left her emotionally stunted. Her voice is at times strong and strident and at times raspy and wobbly. It is undeniably her voice. I need to sit with a lot of my emotions. Honestly, this memoir is one of my favorites. And now I'm wishing I had a therapist like Dan.

[chrisweir-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not my favorite of handlers books. Not a comedy book like others have been. This one deals with her being in therapy and various aspects of her life. The death of her brother and mother, her dogs and how she doesn't deal well with technology.

[juva_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This surprisingly intimate memoir covers a number of topics, from family, to death, to dating, to pets, but central to these topics is the author's pursuit of mental health. Most of the book of is composed of stream-of-consciousness reconstructions of psychiatric sessions. The author is dissatisfied with her level of maturity and has a lot of critical views of her personality. As a result, she decides to partner with a therapist to corrected her inadequacies. Unfortunately, she quickly learns that small, surface level character flaws cannot be excised without unpacking the deep emotional trauma that underlies them.

The author takes us along with her as she works through the formative events of her life as she and her therapist examine how the untimely death of her brother has rippled outward through her life having untold impact. Of course, there are also lots of funny stories about everyday life and dog snuggles. This book has a lot of heavy subject matter despite its bedrock humor, so it's not going to be for everyone. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it, although it did surprise me.

[birthsister · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not her usual fare of out of control escapades, so if you're looking for some light reading and belly laughs you'll be disappointed. This is insightful Chelsea, with a side of politics and a portrait of her rescue dogs as poorly behaved as she is. It wasn't bad, just wasn't what I was expecting or hoped for when I picked it up. I read Chelsea for escapism, not for a forced march through her psyche.

[stefaniegeeks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The audiobook, read by the author, is the same old crass and swear-y humor people either love or hate and expect from Chelsea Handler. In this book, she digs deep into self and strives to share her growth with readers. I enjoyed listening to her delivery and laughed out loud to a good many one-liners.

[jthierer_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This wasn't entirely what I was expecting from Handler. I've read a few of her books in the past and as a general rule, her humor focuses on drinking, sex and general trainwreckery. There was some of that in this one too, but her tone was much less flip and vulnerable. The book focuses on Handler's decision to enter therapy and the childhood issues, especially the death of her older brother, that decision resurfaces. Handler remains characteristically blunt in her assessments, which leads to some moments of real honesty about her own behavior and flaws. I wish this had been marketed as a clear departure from her other work because I think there are many people who aren't fans of her previous work that might really enjoy this one.

[over.the.edge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Life Will Be The Death of Me
by Chelsea Handler
2019
Spiegel & Grau
4.0 / 5.0

Chelsea Handler- the woman I love/hate- has finally grown up. Sorta. She has decided she is an elitist and thinks Bob Mueller is the sexiest man alive....
If you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall during Chelsea's sessions with her therapist, Dan, this is your fly. She shared what she has learned about herself-- that on the Ennergram scale she is an 8, and that she lacks empathy.
Her devotion and love of her chow dogs, her experiences with Ayahuasca ( in case you missed it on Netflix....highly recommended), and her love affair with marijuana. Considering herself not an enabler, but a 'pharmacological intuitive'....are classic. Chelsea's sense of humor, her left of center outlooks and beliefs, her complete honesty no matter the shitstorm...I couldn't put this down.
"Action is motion-is doing. Sitting is being. I had been a doer my entire life. I never sat still long enough to let anyone unglued my pain."
In this book, the unglueing process begins. Her brothers death, and losing her mother and father have brought a different sense of reality to Chelsea she could never have faced before. I think she is brave to be so candid. I miss her Netflix series, but she has moved on to produce movies and to promote her new line....marijuana edibles! Chelsea always follows her heart, this is full of heart, soul, humor and insight.