What are we willing to give up to find meaning, connection, and a sense of belonging? What happens if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand on social media? Will we find the right partner? Will we get into the right college? Or find the best job? Tara Isabella Burton is the author of the novels Social Creature, The World Cannot Give, and Here in Avalon, as well as the nonfiction books Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World and Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians. She is currently working on a history of magic and modernity, to be published by Convergent in late 2025. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic,  Granta, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.