Don't Buy What I'm Selling

“Lu Chekowsky's voice and insight are switchblade keen, and right on time.”—Saeed Jones, poet and author of How We Fight for Our Lives

“What is the human cost of making our bodies into commodities and letting ads into our minds and hearts? Lu Chekowsky knows all too well. Her riveting and wise story will prompt you to rethink who you are and what made you, from the first jingle to the latest Instagram click.”—Sonya Huber, co-editor of Nothing Compares to You: What Sinéad O'Connor Means to Us

“Don’t Buy What I’m Selling is a fascinating, smart, and hilarious look at the advertising world and the complex longings at the heart of consumer culture. Chekowsky’s prose crackles with life, and each scene shimmers with heart. I turned each page, greedy for more, happy to root for Chekowsky, her mother, and for all of us ensnared and enthralled by images and fantasies peddled by advertisers.”—Christie Tate, author of the New York Times bestseller Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life

“Don't Buy What I'm Selling is a whip-smart and funny wild ride through the advertising industry as experienced through both Lu Chekowsky's gimlet eye and a body that first whispered and eventually demanded a more authentic way of life. I found it so gripping that I ignored my own body's sleep signals several nights in a row in favor of reading just one more chapter, cheering Lu on the entire time for her ambition, wit, and sheer moxie.”—Kristi Coulter, author of Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career

“This is a jaw-dropping memoir of a woman at war with her body while her brilliant creative mind spins the campaigns that sell our dreams back to us. It's also a wildly entertaining exposé of the advertising industry. It's impossible not to root for Lu's escape from the prison we all share—whenever we believe there's something we could consume that would relieve the discomfort of living inside our own skin.”—Leigh Stein, bestselling author of Self Care

“A book about advertising has no business being this funny.”—Elissa Bassist, author of Hysterical

"Chekowsky knows her way around a sentence and has a sharp eye for the transactional machinery beneath glamour . . . Both an acidic, funny indictment of an industry and a quietly hopeful story of someone finding her way out."