You Wanna Be on Top? by Sarah Hartshorne * * * * *
You Wanna Be on Top? by Sarah Hartshorne is a sharp, funny, and at times, disturbing memoir about her time on America’s Next Top Model , specifically cycle 9 . 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 t...