You Wanna Be on Top? by Sarah Hartshorne * * * * *
I came to this book with surprisingly little memory of that season. I watched Top Model as it aired, over a decade ago. Living outside the US now means there is no easy, legal way to revisit it; the show exists mostly as cultural residue, Tyra quotes and vague recollections.
Sarah is a great storyteller.
I listened to the audiobook, just over seven and a half hours long, and finished it in about three days because I kept finding excuses to press play. Sarah narrates it herself, and her stand up background shows immediately. The timing is precise; the delivery casual but deliberate; the jokes land cleanly. At times it feels less like an audiobook and more like a very long, very personal stand up set. I laughed out loud more than once.
But this is not just a funny book. That is where it gets interesting.
There is a recurring tension throughout the memoir: stories that are told as jokes, but which collapse into something much darker the moment you pause to examine them. Sarah even names this phenomenon herself. She talks about telling people “fun facts” about her life, only to be met with silence and the realisation that what she finds funny sounds tragic to everyone else. That exact dynamic plays out again and again in the book. You laugh, then you stop; you laugh again, a little more uneasily. The humour is not a shield so much as a coping mechanism.
Her insights into the behind the scenes mechanics of America’s Next Top Model are genuinely fascinating. Not scandal bait, not exaggerated outrage; just clear eyed descriptions of manipulation, narrative engineering, and how little control contestants actually had over their own images. The show is revealed as a machine that runs on pressure and confusion, and Sarah is very good at explaining how it feels to be inside it while still wanting, desperately, to succeed.
What makes the book work so well is Sarah herself. Her voice is specific, self aware, and generous. She does not present herself as flawless or as a victim saint; she presents herself as human. Anxious, ambitious, funny, stubborn. I found myself relating to her more than I expected, particularly in the way humour becomes a social survival strategy. By the end, I genuinely wished I could be friends with her.
This is, ultimately, a very easy recommendation. It is funny; it is uncomfortable; it is insightful; it moves quickly without feeling slight. You do not need to be a Top Model superfan to enjoy it, but if you are interested in the lore, the reality TV machinery, or what it costs to be shaped into a “character,” there is a lot here for you.
More than anything, it made me want more from Sarah Hartshorne. Another memoir, perhaps; but honestly, I would love to see her write fiction. I want to spend more time with her voice, her rhythms, her way of seeing the world.
Seven and a half hours well spent; a book that makes you laugh first, then think, then laugh again, a little differently.
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