Book Review: How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heiti

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“How Should a Person Be?” by Sheila Heiti is an amazing book depicting the hardships of both being a human and being an artist. I highly recommend this book for creatives and non-creatives alike.

“How Should a Person Be?” follows playwright Sheila as she navigates the hardships of writing and of being. Her self-doubt and lack of self-assertiveness embark on this quest of discovering how a person should be as she tries to finally finish her play. She confronts her friends who are painters, especially her best friend Margaux who is a prolific painter.

I really enjoyed this book – this is another very real and honest book. I love writers that really do not shy away from writing the mundane and in all its grotesque facets, a mundane that actually deeply impacts us.

The questions of art, of being, and of human connections. I’ve highlighted so many passages that deeply affected me in that way where you’re taken back by what you read. Moments where I thought: ‘Huh. How simple. How true. How real. How important.’

I deeply connected with this one. The main character Sheila is so complex and real and I’m sure she’s based on the writer herself Sheila Heiti, and I deeply appreciated her flawed journey in coming to her own self.

I highly recommend especially if you’re an artist or creative person.

“We tried not to smile, for smiling only encourages men to bore you and waste your time.”

“It has long been known to me that certain objects want you as much as you want them. These are the ones that become important, the objects that you hold dear. The others fade from your life entirely. You wanted them, but they did not want you in return.”

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