Candid, hilarious essays from the star of The Book of Mormon, Girls, and Big Mouth on anxiety, ambition, and the uncertain path to adulthood, which ask, how will we know when we get there? In Uncle of the Year, Andrew Rannells wonders: If he, now in his early forties, has everything he’s supposed to need to be a true adult–a career, property, a well-tailored suit–why does he still feel like an anxious twenty-year-old climbing his way toward security? Is it because he hasn’t won a Tony, or found a husband, or had a child? And what if he doesn’t want those things? (A husband and a child, that is. He wants a Tony.) In essays drawn from his life and career, Rannells argues that we all pretend we are constantly winning. And with each success, we act like we’ve reached the pinnacle of happiness (for our parents), maturity (for our friends), success (for our bosses), and devotion (for our partners). But if “adulting” is just a pantomime that’s leaving us unmoored, then we need new markers of time, new milestones, new expectations of what adulthood is–and can be. Along the way, Rannells looks back, reevaluating whether his triumphs were actually failures–and his failures, triumphs–and exploring what it will take to ever, ever feel like he has enough. In essays like “Uncle of the Year,” he explores the role that children play in his life, as a man who never thought having kids was necessary or even possible—until his siblings have kids and he falls in love with a man with two of his own. “It’s an Honor to Be Eligible” reveals the thrills and absurdities of the awards circuit (and the desire to be recognized for your work). And in “Horses, Not Zebras,” he shares the piece of wisdom that helped him finally come to terms with crippling anxiety and perfectionism. Filled with witty and honest insights and observations, and a sharp sense of humor, Uncle of the Year challenges us to take a long look at who we're pretending to be, who we know we are, and who we want to become.

There are two kinds of people no one ever expects to be murderers: little girls and old ladies. Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street for sixty years—longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past she's worked exceedingly hard at concealing—because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.

Fleabag meets Big Swiss in this bold debut about a charismatic misfit who livestreams her life for seven days and nights to raise money to save her comatose sister—a poignant and darkly funny exploration of grief, forgiveness, and redemption.Dell Danvers is barely keeping it together. She’s behind on rent for her studio apartment (formerly a walk-in closet), she’s being plagued by perpetual stomach pain, and her younger sister, Daisy, is in a coma at a hospital that wants to pull the plug. Freshly unemployed and subsisting on selling plants to trust fund kids, Dell impulsively starts a 24-hour livestream under the username mademoiselle_dell to fundraise for private life support for Daisy. Dell is her stream’s dungeon master, banishing those who don’t abide by her terms and steadily rising up the platform’s ranks with her sympathetic story and angry-funny screen presence. Once she discovers she has a talent for eating spicy food, her streaming fame explodes and her pepper consumption escalates from jalapeño to ghost to the hottest pepper on the Carolina Reaper. Dell is finally good at something—but as her behavior becomes riskier and a shadowy troll threatens to expose her dark past, Dell must reckon with what her digital life ignores, and what real redemption means. Narrated in seven taut chapters, one for each day of Dell’s livestream, Just Watch Me careens through a week in the life of this charismatic misfit with a heart of gold. Voyeuristic and visceral, audacious and outrageous, Lior Torenberg’s debut is both a razor-sharp tragicomedy about the internet economy and a surreptitiously moving tale about the desire to be watched, and the terror of being seen.

Fleabag meets Big Swiss in this bold debut about a charismatic misfit who livestreams her life for seven days and nights to raise money to save her comatose sister—a poignant and darkly funny exploration of grief, forgiveness, and redemption.Dell Danvers is barely keeping it together. She’s behind on rent for her studio apartment (formerly a walk-in closet), she’s being plagued by perpetual stomach pain, and her younger sister, Daisy, is in a coma at a hospital that wants to pull the plug. Freshly unemployed and subsisting on selling plants to trust fund kids, Dell impulsively starts a 24-hour livestream under the username mademoiselle_dell to fundraise for private life support for Daisy. Dell is her stream’s dungeon master, banishing those who don’t abide by her terms and steadily rising up the platform’s ranks with her sympathetic story and angry-funny screen presence. Once she discovers she has a talent for eating spicy food, her streaming fame explodes and her pepper consumption escalates from jalapeño to ghost to the hottest pepper on the Carolina Reaper. Dell is finally good at something—but as her behavior becomes riskier and a shadowy troll threatens to expose her dark past, Dell must reckon with what her digital life ignores, and what real redemption means. Narrated in seven taut chapters, one for each day of Dell’s livestream, Just Watch Me careens through a week in the life of this charismatic misfit with a heart of gold. Voyeuristic and visceral, audacious and outrageous, Lior Torenberg’s debut is both a razor-sharp tragicomedy about the internet economy and a surreptitiously moving tale about the desire to be watched, and the terror of being seen.

From Marcus Kliewer, a new “titan of the macabre and unsettling” (Erin A. Craig, #1 New York Times bestselling author), comes a supernatural horror about a young woman who accepts a caretaking job from Craigslist only to discover the position has consequences far greater—and more dangerous—than she ever could have imagined. Follow the Rites… Follow the Rites… Follow the Rites… Nothing less than the survival of humanity is at stake. EXCITING OPPORTUNITY: Caregiver for elderly husband urgently needed. Competitive pay. Serious applicants ONLY. If interested, please contact: Carnswel54 @ aol. com As a down on her luck college grad saddled with a disturbing amount of debt, Macy Mullins can't say why the Craigslist posting grabbed her attention—it had all the flare of a fisherman's lure, barbed hook and all. But after an endless string of failed job interviews, she's not exactly in the position to be picky. She has rent to pay and a younger sister to provide for. Unable to turn down a paycheck, she takes the job. She quickly discovers that her responsibilities have stakes far greater—and more dangerous—than she ever could have imagined.

Candid, hilarious essays from the star of The Book of Mormon, Girls, and Big Mouth on anxiety, ambition, and the uncertain path to adulthood, which ask, how will we know when we get there? In Uncle of the Year, Andrew Rannells wonders: If he, now in his early forties, has everything he’s supposed to need to be a true adult–a career, property, a well-tailored suit–why does he still feel like an anxious twenty-year-old climbing his way toward security? Is it because he hasn’t won a Tony, or found a husband, or had a child? And what if he doesn’t want those things? (A husband and a child, that is. He wants a Tony.) In essays drawn from his life and career, Rannells argues that we all pretend we are constantly winning. And with each success, we act like we’ve reached the pinnacle of happiness (for our parents), maturity (for our friends), success (for our bosses), and devotion (for our partners). But if “adulting” is just a pantomime that’s leaving us unmoored, then we need new markers of time, new milestones, new expectations of what adulthood is–and can be. Along the way, Rannells looks back, reevaluating whether his triumphs were actually failures–and his failures, triumphs–and exploring what it will take to ever, ever feel like he has enough. In essays like “Uncle of the Year,” he explores the role that children play in his life, as a man who never thought having kids was necessary or even possible—until his siblings have kids and he falls in love with a man with two of his own. “It’s an Honor to Be Eligible” reveals the thrills and absurdities of the awards circuit (and the desire to be recognized for your work). And in “Horses, Not Zebras,” he shares the piece of wisdom that helped him finally come to terms with crippling anxiety and perfectionism. Filled with witty and honest insights and observations, and a sharp sense of humor, Uncle of the Year challenges us to take a long look at who we're pretending to be, who we know we are, and who we want to become.