Approval Junkie
by Faith Salie
From comedian and journalist Faith Salie, of NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! and CBS News Sunday Morning, a collection of humorous essays chronicling the author's adventures during her lifelong quest for approval. Faith Salie has done it all in the name of validation. Whether it's trying to impress her parents with a perfect GPA, embarking on a spiritual retreat in the hopes of saving her toxic marriage, or maintaining the BMI of "a flapper with a touch of dysentery," Salie is the ultimate approval seeker--an "approval junkie," if you will. In "Miss Aphrodite," she recounts her strategy for winning the high school beauty pageant ("Not to brag or anything, but no one stood a chance against my emaciated, spastic resolve"), in "My Summer Fling With Bill O'Reilly," Salie attempts to win over Bill O'Reilly during their interview ("Papa Bear probably didn't think he could love a girl like me, but I was going to prove him wrong in front of...