Miranda Sawyer

Yeah, I think it's really important.

I think that what's interesting about Elizabeth Wurzel that's maybe in contrast to some of those writers that we mentioned is she doesn't care about being liked.

And that's really important because mostly what happens with writing is when you're writing personal stuff is actually you're going...

Like me.

I'm funny.

You know, I know it's a bit boring, but please like me.

And she just doesn't bother.

She really doesn't bother.

There's some aspects of her writing that reminds me a little bit of Julie Birchall.

Great writer, obviously.

Where it's a bit like saying, actually, I am...

like, nasty and a bit of a fuck-up, and I acknowledge that, but I've also... I've got things to say.

Okay, a lot of people don't like it.

It's unbelievable.

Right, so I'm going to just read some of them.

New York Times Review is actually not bad.

It says she's got the raw candour of Joan Didion's essays, the irritating emotional exhibitionism of Sylvia Plass-Belger and the wry, dark humour of a Bob Dylan song, which I think is good, right?

But Newsweek calls it the self-absorbed ranting of an adolescent.

Right.

Publishers Weekly says she remains too self-involved to justify her contention that depression is endemic to her generation.