I really don't know what I was expecting with this book, but I can tell you, I didn't expect some of it. You get a full chapter walking you back on everything she’s laid a foundation for in previous chapters and how her “next level basic” manifesto has ultimately led to her fall from public grace.

I'm a HUGE Vanderpump rules fan so for me I was going to read this regardless of the style or content of the book. Honestly, I just wasn't expecting her to be as balanced and gracious in her relationships as she is in this book.It was truly hard for me to stomach as one of my biggest pet peeves is when women routinely greet each other, almost as congratulations, with superficialness such as: "I love your outfit! To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. it also just sounds like that one really good friend who's a little drunk, and your the DD and shes stuck in the bathroom with another drunk girl and wont stop talking. Stassi Schroeder’s Next Level Basic gets 5 stars because contrary to that assumption, her book somehow survived as a laughable mess. I started listening to Stassi's podcast and find it cheers me up to listen to her banter about basic bitch things especially when life can be so fucking serious and no fun.

Even with her ridiculousness, silly stories, and obsession with ranch dressing, she has an important message. I have never really listened to a podcast before, but I imagine this book to be like 1 big podcast conversation - just chit chat about this and that - and end everything thing with AF. This book is for everyone out there who is tired of pretending they would rather read War and Peace or see a Daniel Day-Lewis movie about sewing than watch a Saw marathon and drink a delicious but basic AF cocktail like a Kir Royale. I have read many of the housewives books and enjoyed them, I felt I at least went deeper into their history and lives.If you want to laugh and enjoy someone being absolutely real with you, then I encourage you to pick up this book. Schroeder aims to connect with her audience over things the culture at large has dismissed as unimportant and uncool.

There’s something for everyone under Schroeder’s big basic umbrella” (Elle) and in Next Level Basic, the reality star, podcast queen, and ranch dressing expert gives you hilarious and pointed lessons on how to have fun and celebrate yourself, with exclusive stories from her own life and on the set of Vanderpump Rules. You can draw a direct line from Dynasty villains to Stassi Schroeder’s persona on Vanderpump Rules, and that’s the person I wanted to read a memoir from.Of course, the dribble she had been working “so hard on” would be massaged, erasing the disaster of a book I was excited for. But this book was just dumb, I couldn't even get through it all and it's only like 4 hours long on audio. I rarely judge autobiographies too harshly, I often find reading public figures' stories and hearing tidbits about their lives super interesting! Maybe the problem (or at least part of it) was me picking up this book without even knowing who the author was, or what Vanderpump rules is (I think I got the show name right?