Sophia Benoit Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Sophia Benoit
Sophia Benoit grew up in the state of Missouri, which pretty much went how you would expect and was correctly voted “Most Likely to Never Come Back”. She was the valedictorian, class of 2011 at Kirkwood High, and was about as good as a good girl can be. When she was tempted to drink to fit in, she earnestly talked about it with her mother and, for a little bit, would fake it by secretly pour her Bud Light down the sink and refill the bottle with water.

While she was the class clown in school, she was still paying attention in class, even raising her hand so much that her teachers would ask her to stop. She is able to get away with not being 100% serious in a given situation, since she buys that for herself with hard work, allowing herself to be a bit more goofy in professional settings.

She grew up with divorced parents with wildly different families and lives in each home which lent itself to learning how to compartmentalize and be able to toggle between the different versions of herself.

Then she got into USC for theater back during the time she thought she was going to become an actress. She is just ever-so-slightly less deluded and is a writer. She bases much of her self-worth on things that she’s got zero control over.

Sophia has had bylines in Refinery29, Mr. Porter, The Guardian, Reductress, and The Cut. She is a regular relationships and sex columnist for GQ, where she is always pitching articles about Fleetwood Mac.

She writes Here’s The Thing, an advice newsletter, because she is addicted to telling others what she thinks, and she wants everybody to ask their crush out. Or help out the people that are hard themselves that shouldn’t be or people that should really be harder on themselves but aren’t.

Sophia loves giving advice, and has an opinion on everything. It can be tough to keep things to herself, not being some unsolicited advice person unless it is her little siblings. She kinda helped raise her younger siblings, and in many ways feels like a quasi-parent to them so with them, it can get a little tough not to opine with them. However she will give anybody and everybody advice should they ask for it.

She loves getting the letters because it is mainly good people that are looking to do right by others but just not trample themselves in the process, which can be a tough, lifelong battle.

Sophia has always read so many memoirs by women and has loved them for years. It’s always been a fantasy of hers to write one, since she loves reading them. However the feeling that she loves taking away from a memoir penned by a woman is that she feels as though she just felt like she sat down and had a lunch with the author, and both she and the author connected instantly, and the author told her everything, and both cannot quit talking, even talking over each other.

She struggled writing the more serious stuff in her memoir. It is difficult for Sophia to not make certain things funny. Her editor was frequently putting things in footnotes as jokes, because she was wondering if Sophia actually cared it happened to her. Sophia does but figures what can she even do about it?

She lives with Dave, her boyfriend, because he’s hot and rent is super expensive. They also have this dog named Party. Every single time she gets drunk she makes everybody listen to Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”.

“Well, This Is Exhausting” is a non-fiction book that was released in the year 2021. This memoir-in-essays explores the ins and outs of modern womanhood (from the power of pop culture, finding feminism, and how to navigate life’s constant double standards).

Sophia, like so many women, spent her formative years struggling to do the “right” thing (make others comfortable, take calculated or minimal risks, to live up to society’s expectations) just to realize that there’s so little payoff to such a tiring balancing act. Sophia, having grown tired of trying so very hard, at last let go of the crushing pressure to be perfect.

She navigates through the lows and highs of the dating world. High: working as a beta tester for Bumble. Low: would be shaving her legs hastily before hooking up in a hotel and getting blood all over the sheets. And walks the line between being a “chill” girl and making sure her boyfriend’s nonchalance about altitude sickness doesn’t end up getting him killed. She learns how to embrace her own voice, exactly what it means to be a feminist, and when to listen to women that have been through more and have been doing the work longer than her.

With topics ranging from how to be the life of the party (even if you have crippling anxiety), to one ill-fated consultation with a dietitian that deemed Sophia’s overindulgence in ketchup to be a serious health risk. To a masterful argument about why nobody should judge you for having an encyclopedic knowledge of reality television.

Fans of the book found this to not only be one of the most hilarious books that you will read this year, but it is also the most important, as well. Each of these essays are well written and humorous, and Sophia perfectly captures the young adult/millennial experience. Readers like her thoughtful yet still entertaining observations, all mixed in with jokes on her struggles with dating and her overly-emotional family. Sophia’s tone is very conversational, and the book reads like she’s telling readers a story and anticipating their reactions and responding to them in real time.

By the end of the book readers grew to love Sophia’s unique voice, and even days after completing the book her phrases were still bouncing around in the back of their mind. And they would find themselves laughing at the little things they’re doing or thinking about because it is just the sort of thing she’d make a joke of.