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Arianna Rebolini was formerly the books editor at BuzzFeed News, and her criticism, essays, and features have appeared in the Atlantic, the Guardian, Esquire, Time, the Cut, Vulture, O Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is the author, with Katie Heaney, of the novel Public Relations. Her memoir, Better (Harper Books, April 29, 2025), intimately explores suicide, its legacy in families, and the cyclical, crooked path of recovery. She lives in Queens, N.Y., with her husband, son, and two cats.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
Better is an anti-capitalist, anti-individualist memoir and meditation on suicide, community, and the existential and psychological effects of the systems in which we live.
On your nightstand now:
You need a stack on the nightstand. You never know what mood you'll be in when you get in bed! In rotation right now:
Waiting for Britney Spears by Jeff Weiss, a page-turner about tabloid writer Jeff Weiss tracking Britney's comings and goings during the rise and fall of her career. It's larger than life and often hilarious, but also a great exploration of complicity in America's systems of fame, consumerism, and exploitation.
Walking on the Moon by Barbara Wilson, a slim short story collection that I found at the Last Bookstore, by a writer who, I've since learned, was groundbreaking in lesbian crime fiction. These are slice-of-life stories but so beautiful and prescient, and I'm thrilled to dive deeper into her bibliography.
Asadora! by Naoki Urasawa, a manga series about a girl in postwar Japan who ends up involved in a ransom plot. My five-year-old son is super into manga and our many visits to both Kinokuniya and Anime Castle in Flushing, Queens, have led me on my own manga journey--usually horror (shout-out to the extremely grotesque Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service) but really anything otherworldly.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I was obsessed with Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. I remember the feeling of reading it, of wanting a name as cool as Salamanca, of imagining myself in her world, in her grandparents' car. I loved it so much that when I was 11 years old and found out my new friend, Emily, also loved it, I decided we were basically soul mates. We're still best friends.
Your top five authors:
This pressure must be what actors feel on the red carpet when Letterboxd asks them for their favorite films. Rapid fire: Louise Erdrich, Beverly Cleary, Italo Calvino, Ruth Ozeki, Colson Whitehead.
Book you've faked reading:
I started Jack Kerouac's On the Road in high school, got bored, never finished it, but continued to cite it as one of my favorite books for as long as it took me to grow out of my deeply unfortunate, but ultimately character-building, phase of building a literary taste that I hoped would impress the boys I liked. No hate to Kerouac: I love "the only people for me are the mad ones" as much as the next person!
Book you're an evangelist for:
When my former roommate found out I'd never read Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, she immediately went to her bookshelf, grabbed one of her two well-worn paperback copies, and thrust it into my hands while I sort of meekly said westerns aren't really my thing. She didn't care; it didn't matter. I would love it, she said. I did. It's 858 pages of absolute perfection, covering the scope of humanity: love, morality, ambition, grief, everything. I sobbed while finishing it, and now I'm the one shoving it in people's hands.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Bluebeard's Castle by Anna Biller. My local bookstore, Topos, has impeccable taste and I'm often making purchases based on vibes, knowing whatever I leave with will be good. I, full disclosure, have not read it yet.
Book you hid from your parents:
I wouldn't say I hid Dave Pelzer's A Child Called "It" from my parents, but I probably would have been embarrassed if either of them picked it up and asked me about it. I feel like children of the '90s were obsessed with trauma stories. The Chicken Soupseries? I remember them like a fever dream.
Book that changed your life:
The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis. It made me fall in love with fantasy and believe in magic. I stand by both.
Favorite line from a book:
"Unfathomable mind, now beacon, now sea." From Molloy by Samuel Beckett. I love Beckett; I wrote my thesis on Beckett; I have a tattoo of one of Beckett's marginalia doodles. My original Twitter username was "nowbeacon" until my first big-time boss e-mailed me and said, "Uh, what does that even mean?" (A fair question! I changed it.) I always thought it would be one of Better's epigraphs--the mind really is both a beacon and a sea!--and then I just... forgot. There's always the next book.
Five books you'll never part with:
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith: it was my mom's favorite book when she was a little girl growing up in Brooklyn, and so it also became (one of) mine. I've read it more than any other single book.
Italian Folk Magic by Mary-Grace Fahrun: there's a rich history of Italian and Sicilian witchcraft, and this book has been great for me while trying to reconnect to it. It really helped me get through the pandemic and I return to it regularly in my general magic practice.
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin: a classic mystery romp. I read it to my brothers and now I'm reading it to my son. It holds up.
trans girl suicide museum by hannah baer: blew my mind the first time I read it, and I returned to it so many times while writing my book--there are notes in the margins that show portions of Better coming together.
The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges: I found a beautiful old copy of this surreal compendium in our Little Free Library, and I've loved revisiting its entries and illustrations over the years, especially with my son.