Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America: Essays

Name: Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America: Essays
SKU: 108125
Availability: InStock

4.4 | 1,102 ratings

Price: 13.78

Last update: 09-08-2024

About this item

National Best Seller

Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today

From the creator of Elle’s “Eric Reads the News", a heartfelt and hilarious memoir-in-essays about growing up seeing the world differently, finding unexpected hope, and experiencing every awkward, extraordinary stumble along the way.

“Pop culture-obsessed, Sedaris-level laugh-out-loud funny...[R. Eric Thomas] is one of my favorite writers.” (Lin-Manuel Miranda, Entertainment Weekly)

Named One of the 10 Best Books of the Year by Teen Vogue and One of the Best Books of the Year by O: The Oprah Magazine NPR Marie Claire Men’s Health

R. Eric Thomas didn’t know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went - whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative Black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city - he found himself on the outside looking in.

In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Thomas reexamines what it means to be an “other” through the lens of his own life experience. He explores the two worlds of his childhood: the barren urban landscape where his parents’ house was an anomalous bright spot, and the Eden-like school they sent him to in white suburbia. He writes about struggling to reconcile his Christian identity with his sexuality, the exhaustion of code-switching in college, accidentally getting famous on the internet (for the wrong reason), and the surreal experience of covering the 2016 election for Elle online, and the seismic changes that came thereafter. Ultimately, Thomas seeks the answer to these ever more relevant questions: Is the future worth it? Why do we bother when everything seems to be getting worse? As the world continues to shift in unpredictable ways, Thomas finds the answers to these questions by reenvisioning what “normal” means and in the powerful alchemy that occurs when you at last place yourself at the center of your own story.

Here for It will resonate deeply and joyfully with everyone who has ever felt pushed to the margins, struggled with self-acceptance, or wished to shine more brightly in a dark world. Stay here for it - the future may surprise you.

Sarah Longson

5 stars are insufficient

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2020

Excuse me, Mr. Bezos? This is one book where 5 stars are wholly insufficient.
This book is not only funny and fun to read - anyone who has read anything that R Eric Thomas has posted knows to expect that - but it is also deeply thoughtful, poignant, sweet, challenging, and moving. You will laugh out loud (I know because I did repeatedly), but you will also pause and think without really realizing you’re pausing and thinking - about deeply important issues facing us all. This is a serious book - except it reads like a breeze, and at the end you’re like “wow! That was so fun and hilarious and I am either a better person or I need to be a better person RIGHT NOW”
Get this book. You will be happy you did.

Petunia

Heartwarming, honest, and funny.

Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2022

R. Eric Thomas writes from his knowledge, his empathy, and his surroundings. These essays are just a few stops in the pathway of his life. i look forward to reading more and will google him on the internet. ???? more glitter

Shannon Weston

I'm 100% Here for It

Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2020

I've spent the last few days listening to R. Eric Thomas's book #HereforIt. And it is not only completely delightful, hilarious, and well written, all of which I'm here for, but I have now decided that Eric will accompany me everywhere.

Like Jiminy Cricket he is now the voice of my conscience. I have full conversations with a tiny Eric angel and a tiny Eric devil now in my head, which used to be crowded with others, but now there is only one!

All the other, especially evil voices- BE GONE! My Mother... OUT! That one teacher that said that one thing that one time... AWAY WITH YOU! All those people who said I wasn't enough... GO TO HELL!

Eric is the fairy Godmother I've always needed. He is raw, vulnerable, and fierce! I didn't want the book to end, so when it did, I simply restarted it!

Buy the book and read it, but if you really love yourself, as you love your neighbor, you'll purchase the audiobook. Trust me, soon he'll be your Jiminy too.

C. Purvis

A Compelling, Funny Memoir

Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2020

I'm mortified that I just now finished this book- a book that I pre-ordered last August and waited months and months to arrive. But Covid happened, what can I say? At least being a memoir made it easier to pick up again and again.

I've bern an R. Eric super fan since I first found his pieces on the Democratic convention and the Olympics in the summer of 2016. His pieces are always hysterical; just my cup of humor tea. 'Here For It' takes his humor and writing skill to a new level. The pieces share so much of his soul, it was an honor to read them. I cried, I laughed - sometimes out loud with tears as well.

His is a wonderful, intersectional voice. I encourage you to let his words reach, inform and entertain you.

David Ulmer

Waiting to laugh.

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2021

We thought it was a comedy. It wasn’t.

AJT

Absolutely wonderful.

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2020

I read the audiobook, and I loved listening to Thomas narrate his essasys. He adds so much life to his writings through his narration, and honestly, I want to be BFFs with him. He's totally delightful, and I feel like we would agree about many things.

His essays are funny and smart and thoughtful. His essay about his friend Electra made me cry, and his play at the end was a lovely way to wrap the whole collection up.

Lynn S

Some of the essays were wonderful

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2020

Rarely do I find a series of essays completely engaging. This was better than the average and I found myself frequently googling the author to get a "picture" of who he is.

Char

Thank you.

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2020

I write so few reviews that I had to search Google for a how-to. But here I am, I found it. I’ve been reading R. Eric ever since his star-creating essay about Obama, Macron, and Trudeau. There are many times when I wish the only way I could consume current events is through R Eric Thomas’s missives and observations.
I knew his collection of essays would be at least funny. I didn’t expect them to be so thoughtful, smart, and relatable. He is the perfect writer for this shifting tumultuous time we are in. His writing is beautiful. I have decided that once I finish this last essay, I will reread it again from the beginning. I want to thank him, somehow, for being that small crack of light in these dark times. So anyway, R. Eric Thomas, if you read your reviews, thank you for it all. Thank you laying bare your experiences and then crafting them into such a kind-hearted, joyful even when sad jewel of a book.

Now....let’s write the fictional book. xo

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