Misfits

A Personal Manifesto – by the creator of 'I May Destroy You'

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A Vogue, Vulture, Time Magazine, Observer and LitHub BEST AUTUMN BOOK

From the brilliant mind of the creator and star of I May Destroy You and Chewing Gum comes a passionate declaration against fitting in.

Michaela Coel's MacTaggart Lecture touched a lot of people with her striking revelations about race, class and gender. But in the end, the person most impacted was Coel herself. Building on this speech, Misfits immerses readers in her deeply personal vision through powerful allegory and anecdotes - from her East London upbringing to her discovery of theatre and love for storytelling.

With inspiring insight and wit, she tells of her reckoning with trauma and metamorphosis into a champion for herself, inclusivity and radical honesty, and in telling her journey invites us to reflect on our own. By embracing our differences, she says, we can transform our lives. An artist to her core, Coel holds up the path of the creative as an emblem of our need to regard one another with care and respect - and transparency.

Misfits is a triumphant call for honesty, empathy and inclusion. This timely, necessary book is a rousing coming-to-power manifesto dedicated to anyone who has ever worried about fitting in.

'Razor-sharp and as funny as I May Destroy You ... a gifted writer' Sunday Times

'A perfect truth-teller of our time' ELLE

'Leaps off the page' Observer

'Comic and devastating' New York Times

'Your self-help bible of 2021' Sunday Times

Profound, hilarious, devastating and breathtakingly beautiful all at once' gal-dem

© Michaela Coel 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Michaela CoelMichaela CoelEbury Digital

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Essays Gender Studies Social Sciences

Critic reviews

Astute ... Coel is a gifted writer. The text is razor-sharp and as funny as I May Destroy You (Rosie Kinchen)

Warm and funny ... A perfect truth-teller of our time

Searing ... A call-to-arms book filled with life lessons. Prepare for this to be your self-help bible of 2021

Her narrative power transcends the small screen. Coel's is a voice that jumps off the page, and it's one we're lucky to have applied to whichever story she chooses to tell

Leaps off the page ... [Coel] hits hard: funny, but also direct ... Coel is all about letting go of fear or, at least, of using it to find your way to something better (Miranda Sawyer)

This short and sharp piece of non-fiction once again shows Michaela Coel as the magnificent thinker she is ... Misfits is profound, hilarious, devastating and breathtakingly beautiful all at once

Misfits is, to be clear, a manifesto - a statement of values, a call to arms. True to the form, you'll be urging it on people ... Coel's manifesto does not attempt to be comprehensive or systematic, but it's clear on what it wants to do and does it very well ... I suspect it bears the same relation to the sum total of Coel's intellect that The Communist Manifesto does to Marx's. I am very glad both books exist (Naoise Dolan)

Coel makes her literary debut with a slim manifesto written with the same perfect balance of sentiment, insight and wit that made viewers fall in love with her on the screen

By turns wryly comic and devastating ... [Misfits] codifies her efforts to achieve transparency in her work and in her life (Dave Itzkoff)

A small book with big ideas that provides revealing snapshots of a career in television from the vantage point of an outsider ... That Coel's original speech didn't bring about an instant revolution in the industry would surely justify its transformation into a book ... A remarkable talent

(Fiona Sturges)

Most relevant

Absolutely excellent, beautifully written, courageously honest and as always, articulately delivered. I couldn’t stop listening once I started and I finished it in one sitting. Very much recommended.