A Los Angeles Times Bestseller · A Booksense Pick

Microthrills

True Stories From a Life of Small Highs

ISBN 978-0452288430
In her effervescent, delightfully neurotic memoir...Spero works...magic on paper.” The New York Times

Wendy Spero's story begins in the one-bedroom, Upper East Side apartment she shared with her overly protective, sex-therapist mother, where, as a little girl, she passed the time gnawing on strawberry-scented erasers, breaking up arguments between her imaginary friends, and being subjected to cut-throat nursery school applications.

Eventually, Wendy broke out on her own—but continued to be admonished by her mother for not having enough quality orgasms. After a stint of door-to-door knife-selling, she began her first (and last) office job, where formed an unusual relationship with her big-time executive boss—one that involved as much pot smoking and gold glitter as it did mentoring. Now, a comedian living in L.A., Wendy grapples with such grown-up issues as trying to kick her addiction to eating candy in bed, parenting dozens of high-maintenance stuffed animals, and finally learning how to drive.

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ISBN 978-0143058908

Also available as an audiobook!

Listen to the audiobook read by Wendy:

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Praise for Microthrills

‘I just relish the act of bonding with strangers,’ she explains. Her readers will relish it, too....In 2004, Ms Spero wove together her microthrills and her touching personal history in the one-woman show "Who's Your Daddy?" In this book, she works the same magic on paper.” READ MORE 
Part Amy Sedaris, part Pee-wee Herman...” READ MORE 

Microthrills will make you cringe with glee. Wendy takes you insider her peculiar mind and personal history with a brazen vulnerability that is the rare providence of truly great humorists. She has a singular and completely warped view of the world, able to find poignancy and jubilation in life's nagging minutiae. David Sedaris, watch your back!"Ed Helms

An enchanting memoir of a childhood spent in a cramped, one-bedroom Manhattan apartment with her sex therapist mother...suffused with equal parts tragedy and love—and an unerring eye for the quirky.” READ MORE 
As the endearingly neurotic daughter of a widowed sex-therapist mother, Wendy Spero had no choice but to be funny.”

Reading Microthrills is like breathing air—It feels natural. You don't feel yourself reading. Wendy Spero paints a world both familiar and unique—so specific that you feel implanted in her moments. What I'm trying to say is that I really like it. And I'm trying to say it in a hoity-toity way.”Sarah Silverman

Say what you will about Wendy Spero's adolescence, but it was probably weirder than yours....”
Comedian Wendy Spero might accurately be called a hypochondriac—or a total freak—if she weren't so fucking hilarious. She made me laugh out loud several times (while reading outdoors in public) when moments earlier, after a particularly rought day, I'd been crying. If an author can do that, her book's a keeper.”
Hilarious memoir about growing up eccentric in Manhattan, with lots of laugh-so-hard-you-snort- milk-out-your-nose moments.”

Microthrills was a series of micro-orgasms for me, not only in my funny bone, but throughout my brain. I love the magical minutiae of the way Wendy Spero's mind works. This book will be loved, loved, loved by all.”Jill Soloway

Spero's down-to-earth, adorably compulsive voice delivers some priceless moments.”
Possesses a sweetness often lacking in today's comic fare.”
This memoir focuses on bizarre coming-of-age experiences that will make readers laugh aloud.”