Meet Corbin Moore, a twenty-something lapsed writer whose job at a struggling, off-brand spiritualist bookshop in Seattle meshes well with his regimen of smoking cannabis, binge eating, and doom-watching the news. That rut is interrupted by the return of his overbearing mother, Geraldine, a famous self-help guru who’s looking for a guinea pig. Add in the daily deluge of Corbin’s deep-seated insecurities and body dysmorphia, the prospect of reunion with still beloved ex-girlfriend Beth, and nonstop harassment by a murder of near-murderous crows, and you get a person most in need of help—but from whom, and how?

Sharply funny and surprisingly tender, Daniel Pope’s debut asks the question: What if we’re not broken in all the ways the prophets of American self-help say we are? This book is for all the people self-improvement leaves behind.