Most memoirs are apology tours. This one is a declaration of war.

Shirin Delalat has written the book every woman who's ever been called "difficult" has been waiting for. Not because it validates our rage (though it does), but because it refuses to dress that rage up in acceptable clothes.

The writing operates like a master class in controlled demolition. Each chapter targets a different lie we tell ourselves about being good, being liked, being manageable. The execution is flawless: brutal observations delivered with the emotional temperature of someone discussing the weather.
Take her description of quitting a job where mediocre men stole her ideas: the whole scene unfolds with devastating clarity, no melodrama required. Or her analysis of friendships that run on performance rather than connection. These aren't rants. They're autopsies.

What makes this dangerous is how funny it is. Shirin has weaponized humor in ways that should probably be illegal. You'll find yourself laughing at observations that should horrify you, nodding along to truths that make you complicit in your own discomfort.

The book's real genius lies in its complete rejection of likability. Shirin doesn't want your sympathy or your understanding. She wants your attention. And once she has it, she uses it to dismantle every comfortable assumption you've made about how women should move through the world.
This isn't therapy. It's artillery.

Some readers will find it too sharp, too unforgiving. Those readers are exactly who this book is about.
"i wish i was worse" doesn't ask permission. It takes what it wants and leaves you grateful for the experience.

Reading i wish i was worse feels like standing too close to a live wire and realizing you like it. Shirin Delalat doesn’t write to comfort you. She writes like she’s cross-examining the parts of herself (and you) that still believe in politeness as a survival strategy. The result is unnervingly clean, no fluff, no apology, just truth that hits before you have time to brace for it.
This isn’t the kind of book you read. It’s the kind you absorb like radiation. Delalat writes with the composure of someone who’s already burned and decided to make it beautiful. Every page hums with that quiet threat: what if she’s right?
There’s no sermon here, no redemption arc, no plea for understanding. She dissects the machinery of being female and leaves the pieces on the table for you to stare at. You can almost hear the hum of her restraint. The danger isn’t in what she says—it’s in how calmly she says it.
It’s not a self-help book, though it might accidentally help you. It’s not empowerment lit, either. It’s what happens when a woman stops translating herself for other people and starts reporting from the front lines of her own life.
Delalat writes about grief, motherhood, sex, and betrayal with unnerving calm, the way someone describes a fire they started on purpose. You don’t get the sense she’s seeking redemption. You get the sense she’s telling the truth because lying would be boring.
The stories don’t build toward catharsis. They build toward recognition. You see yourself in the small cruelties, the performances, the silences you thought were self-control. Then you realize she’s already seen you there.
By the time you reach the final chapter, you realize the book isn’t about becoming worse. It’s about becoming accurate.
Five stars, though that feels inadequate for something that doesn’t care about being rated.

Disclaimer: I'm friends with the author. However, my friendship with her doesn't affect this review whatsoever because if she read it and knew I was BS'ing, she'd be even more pissed off. So obviously, I'm not sugarcoating anything, which actually makes perfect sense for this book.

I've noticed a slight trend in my reading this year. Call it reactionary, call it retaliatory, call it self-discovery--whatever. Or maybe it's just that I'm tired and angry on a lot of different levels and I'm drawn to these stories about gloriously messy and extra characters who either don't hide themselves or learn that hiding their true selves is far more trouble than it's worth.

i wish i was worse follows this trend with one notable distinction: it's not fiction. now, if you know me, you know I don't read much nonfiction. This largely has to do with the general state of the world and the fact that I actually read trial transcripts/cases/statutes for my job and all that leaves me without the desire or mental energy to read nonfiction. But every once in awhile, I make exceptions and because I do so infrequently, those exceptions had better be worth it.

i wish i was worse is worth it.

More a collection of essays and reflections than a memoir, i wish i was worse is told through Delalat's raw and unflinching examination of her past experiences: disappointments, mistakes, and the lessons learned therefrom. There's also grief that's borne of different losses. All of these experiences have not shaped Delalat so much as forged her into a woman who is unrepentant about who she is, what she expects, and what she wants.

The message of the book is set out early: "Don't mistake this for another guide to becoming better. This isn't advice. It's a dare. A dare to become worse: louder, messier, feral, diabolical." This is not because you hate yourself or you hate others--it's a dare not to care about what other people think. It's a book about loving yourself enough to be authentically yourself, no matter what, and trusting that you'll find the people who will love you not in spite of it, but because of it.

Delalat's voice is undeniable, with sarcasm, wit, humor, self-deprecation, and just enough tenderness to keep things real. Along with the rage and being fed-up with expectations of women, there's also some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. And there's love--lots of love. It's in every page, every word, and it's what drives her to be the best worst version of herself. Even throughout conflicts and heartbreaks and loss, Delalat stays stubbornly, defiantly true to herself and refuses to be better at making herself small for other people's comfort. She is worse in the absolute best sense of the word.

Thank you to Shirin Delalat and NetGalley for the eARC!

This book was a reckoning amongs the ruins of the sh*t I thought I had figured out, excavating things I definitely don’t have figured out, wasn’t ready to feel and can’t escape.
I loved it. I hated it too, sometimes. But it was so visceral, so powerful and so REAL that I couldn’t look away. This book is art. I’ll probably never read it again, and I’ll definitely never stop thinking about it. I’ve already preordered it because I can’t stand the thought of not having it here. Just in case I forget, or I need to be worse.

Shirin Delalat has done something extraordinary here: she's written about being a woman without once asking for forgiveness. No hedging, no softening, no careful explanations for why she takes up space. Just the cold, hard truth about what happens when you refuse to shrink.
The voice is addictive. Each page reads like eavesdropping on the most fascinating conversation at a party you weren't invited to. Delalat dissects social expectations with the precision of a forensic pathologist, finding the exact spot where politeness becomes self-destruction.
Her encounter with the literary conference windbag is a masterpiece of strategic humiliation. Watching her systematically expose his intellectual bankruptcy through perfectly crafted questions feels like witnessing justice in real time. The man never saw it coming because he couldn't imagine threat packaged so quietly.
But the real power lies in the smaller moments. Her mother telling her she's "too much" while being exactly that herself. The coworker who steals her ideas then acts wounded when called out. The friend who wants her presence but not her opinions. These aren't dramatic revelations. They're Tuesday afternoons in most women's lives.
What makes this essential reading is how Delalat refuses to transform pain into wisdom. She doesn't emerge enlightened or healed. She emerges honest. And in a world that demands women perform growth rather than claim truth, that honesty feels revolutionary.
This book will cost you friends. The wrong ones. Good riddance.