Reading with... Elyse Myers

photo: Wes Ellis

Elyse Myers is a writer, comedian, and content creator who's known to her 12 million followers as "The Internet's Best Friend," sharing stories and comedic sketches and serving as an advocate for topics such as neurodivergence, imposter syndrome, body image, and more. Her debut book, That's a Great Question, I'd Love to Tell You (Morrow, October 28, 2025), is a collection of deeply personal stories and hand-drawn illustrations.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

A really bizarre kaleidoscope of information you didn't ask me to tell you about myself, that is--somehow--very specific and also oddly universal.

On your nightstand now:

Two glasses half filled with stale water.
An empty wine glass. 
An empty plastic bowl with crumbs that used to be Cheez-It crackers.
A fan because I can't sleep without it.
The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren.
Nipple covers.
My Oura Ring charger.
A 7mm crochet hook.
A bottle of Unisom.
A galaxy light.
My journal and pen.
The charging case to my vibrator (just the case because I lost the actual vibrator which is... deeply concerning when I stop to think about it so I try not to).
Reading glasses.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Your top five authors:

Agatha Christie: Mystery without being too scary (I love a good whodunnit).

Raphael Bob-Waksberg: Incredible at writing very ordinary moments in a way that sound like art and also feel like he's reading your mind.

B.K. Borison: My romance novel queeeeeen. She writes the sweetest love scenes and the sweetest romances! Really features lots of neurodivergent themes in her stories, which I always connect with deeply.

Ana Huang: Her book King of Wrath was the first super spicy romance novel I read that made me fall in love with reading spice. I used to skip the sex scenes in books and just read the romance novels for the love story, and the way Ana Huang writes spice converted me forever.

Abby Jimenez: Also love her for her sweet romances. She writes a lot of forced proximity, fake dating, and enemies-to-lovers stories which are some of my favorite tropes!

Book you've faked reading:

1. Every
2. Book
3. Assigned
4. To
5. Me
6. In
7. High school

Book you're an evangelist for:

I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't put all three of these books in my answer:

Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg--highly influential book for my own writing style and always inspires me.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang--helped me understand sex and my sexuality as an autistic woman in a very profound way.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.

Book you hid from your parents:

The entire Harry Potter series.

Book that changed your life:

Same answer as the one above for the prompt "Book you're an evangelist for."

Favorite line from a book:

"If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with 'creative temperament'--it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness, such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again." --from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Five books you'll never part with:

From above:

Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

And:
Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn--This is special to me for a few reasons, the first being that it takes place in New York City. I always wanted to live in New York as a kid, and I felt like I got to live through Dash and Lily and the way that they wrote about their experiences as teenagers in one of the greatest cities in the world. The second reason was that the entire book is focused around journal entries. They are strangers that have never met and write back and forth to each other in a journal, daring each other to do things that they otherwise wouldn't be brave enough to do. I have read this book in so many different seasons of my life, and each time, I see so much of myself in Lily. Even when she's afraid, she still somehow moves forward as if she is fearless and lets her brain catch up. I love how vulnerable and honest Dash and Lily are with each other due to the anonymity of their situation. It feels like they both know each other better than anyone else in their real lives, and in writing to each other, I love how they learn more about themselves in the process. It's such a sweet book, and even writing all of this out now, it makes me want to pick it up and read it all over again.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein--it's beautiful in a very melancholy way. All of Shel Silverstein's stories, poems, and illustrations feel like real life because real life doesn't always have a happy ending, or an ending at all. Sometimes situations just... exist. And learning how to find beauty and meaning within those are what I think Shel Silverstein does best in Where the Sidewalk Ends. I became inspired at a really young age to doodle in my journal the way that he draws in his books, and to make my writing interact with my drawings instead of living and existing separately. So much of what I write today was inspired by his storytelling and his poems.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough. I will never forget the shock I felt in the last few pages. I have never in my life gasped so loud and stood frozen for so long as I did after finishing that book. I remember finishing it standing over the kitchen counter and involuntarily throwing it at the wall because I was so surprised that my body just naturally flung the book across the room, and then I stared into space for a solid two to three minutes. The entire book sucks you in and is thrilling without being so scary that you can't get up and pee at night while reading it before bed, which is the perfect level of scariness for me when picking a thriller. But the ending really made it the best thriller I've ever read in my life (and probably will ever read, if I'm being honest).

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