It's Terrible the Things I Have to Do Be Me: On Femininity and Fame

*One of the Telegraph's Greatest Books of 2025* 'I love Philippa Snow's writing, truly and deeply' Lena Dunham 'A brutal and brilliant study of female celebrity ... a joy to read, fizzing with intelligence' Megan Nolan, Telegraph 'Wildly entertaining' Dazed'Snow's prose is beautiful, white-hot and breathless, like a sports car speeding through the canyon' Observer--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How does an icon become an icon? How did Anna Nicole Smith model herself on Marilyn Monroe? What connects Lindsay Lohan with Elizabeth Taylor? How is self-made beauty Pamela Anderson like trans Bond girl Caroline 'Tula' Cossey? In a series of interconnected essays about pairs of famous women, award-nominated essayist and art critic Philippa Snow explores the echoes and connections between a constellation of female stars and lays bare the artful and gruelling demands of femininity - from the golden age of Hollywood to the Instagram era. Full of the fascinating, entertaining and lurid details you might expect from the lives of mega-famous celebrities, dissected with icicle-sharp intelligence and rendered in stylish, flamboyant prose, Philippa Snow's first full-length non-fiction work is a radically insightful book about the complex meanings and layers of femininity in a male-dominated world.