It's Terrible the Things I Have to Do to Be Me

'A vodka-and-valium-fuelled drive through the beauty and bloodshed of female celebrity ... Snow's prose is beautiful, white-hot and breathless, like a sports car speeding through the canyon' Observer


How does an icon become an icon? How did Anna Nicole Smith model herself on Marilyn Monroe? What connects Lindsay Lohan with Elizabeth Taylor? How is self-made beauty Pamela Anderson like trans bond girl Caroline 'Tula' Cossey?


'Deserves a place next to other recent essay collections such as Claire Dederer's Monsters and Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror ... find someone who writes about anything as well as Philippa Snow writes about Kristen Stewart, and let them loose on this hot mess of a world' Prospect


'Dark, clever and emotionally complicated, yet at the same time accessible and fun' Irish Times


'Snow's criticism has a spiritual majesty ... through Snow's humanity, sympathy and crucial insight, every star's story is retold anew' Big Issue