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NOT AWAKENED

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Out February 23, 2027 from Hachette Balance

Pre-order and you're in.

Two things. Both of them free.
One of them is a secret.

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Any retailer counts. Any format counts. Hardcover, ebook, audiobook — the bonus is the same.

The scene

that started it all

I flew to India to get enlightened.

A month of meditation, silence, the whole thing. At the graduation ceremony, in front of everyone, I was handed a report card.

It was the best worst moment of my life - and it's where the book begins.

Mine said…
NOT AWAKENED.

Drop your email and I'll send you the scene, straight to your inbox!

No funnel, no 14-part series, no "journey."

Just the pages, the preorder bonuses, and the day the book is actually buyable.

About the book

It's about time somebody said it:
the self-help industry can be exhausting.

Somehow we've convinced ourselves that the only way to reach our "higher self" is to meditate every day, curate the perfect kick-ass morning routine, and fill journal after journal with manifestations. And while that works for some people, plenty of us are left feeling more broken than when we started.

I've seen the often-toxic machinery of the wellness industry up close. I spent over a decade as a creative force behind some of the biggest names in personal development - and I've been the customer, the retreat goer, and the journal filler. (NOT) Awakened is my reckoning: instead of chasing a "higher self," we get to own the parts of ourselves the industry keeps telling us to transcend.

The mess. The rage. The appetites. The shame.

Woven with stories that are by turns laugh-out-loud, heartbreaking, and a little too honest, (NOT) Awakened is proof that if you think you've failed at enlightenment more times than you can count, you're not alone.

The path forward isn't a better morning routine. It's giving up on the fantasy that there's a fixed, finished version of you waiting somewhere - and meeting the one you already are.

Discover the pre-order bonuses

Praise for (NOT) Awakened

The exact cliche-smashing truth bomb the 'self-help' industry needs (and deserves). (NOT) Awakened is a gripping portal to real self-acceptance, a tsunami of earned insight delivered with searing wit and crystalline, unadulterated honesty. The truth bomb that blows every other 'self-help' book right off the shelf. Because, maybe, we've been trying to fix something that was never broken to begin with.

AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS, New York Times best-selling author of Running with Scissors
Through her radical and raw honesty, Michelle models for us all a doable way to lighten the load of shame we all carry. She embodies the adage: 'The truth shall set you free!' You will be as rapt by her story as I was in addition to the entertaining yet poignant way she tells it.

RICHARD C. SCHWARTZ, PhD, New York times best-selling author and creator of internal family systems
This phenomenal book is the perfect antidote to our exhausting Instagram wellness culture, one that has made 'healing' a bottomless and expensive item on our to-do list. What Garside offers is nothing short of revolutionary - a step-by-step guide to radical self-acceptance.

NICOLA KRAUS, #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Nanny Diaries and The Best We Could Hope For
In her remarkable debut, (NOT) Awakened, Michelle Garside managed to have me laughing my ass off while simultaneously breaking my heart. She has a unique voice that resonates with authenticity and vulnerability."

GABBY BERNSTEIN, New York Times best-selling author
(NOT) Awakened is for those ready to finally stop fixing their lives and start owning their beautiful, messy wholeness.

KRIS CARR, New York Times best-selling author
The wisdom Michelle shares in (NOT) Awakened comes straight from the heart - which, in her case, is bold, open, hilarious, and achingly beautiful.

PRISCILLA WARNER, New York Times best-selling author
(NOT) Awakened is the anti-guru book we all need right now - a no-bullshit reminder that the power was never in the awakening but in the radical act of claiming every broken, beautiful, shameful part of yourself and saying, 'I got me.'

JENNIFER PASTILOFF, best-selling author of On Being Human and Proof of Life
Heartbreaking, hilarious, and poignant, Michelle proves to us in (NOT) Awakened that only when all parts of us are welcome can we truly feel free.

JESSICA ORTNER, New York Times best-selling author
Reclaiming our spiritual authority is the single most critical act of self-love. (NOT) Awakened reminds us that we have all along contained the answers we seek, and that it's embodiment - not transcendence - that's the key.

MEGGAN WATTERSON, Wall Street Journal best-selling author
(NOT) Awakened is absolutely authentic, real, and utterly propulsive. Hooked from page one.

JANE GREEN, New York Times best-selling author
This book is a breath of fresh air in a world obsessed with self-improvement. Michelle Garside reminds us that freedom isn't found in fixing ourselves but in finally telling the truth and embracing our messy, human wholeness. Raw, hilarious, and deeply liberating!

ANITA MOORJANI, New York Times best-selling author
In an era of spiritual bypassing dressed up as 'healing,' this book is genuinely brave. Michelle Garside doesn't offer transcendence as a kind of escape hatch; she asks you to sit with what actually happened - in its messy and often humiliating form - before you even try to make it mean something. That is not easy to do. She does it anyway.

GINA MOFFA, LCSW, grief and trauma therapist and author of Moving On Doesn't Mean Letting Go: A Modern Guide to Navigating Loss

THE PRE-ORDER BONUS

There is something you've never said out loud.

Not to your therapist. Not to your best friend at 2am. Not in the journal, because you know somebody could find the journal. It sits in your chest and it charges you rent, and every wellness person you've ever paid has told you that if you'd just DO THE WORK, it would be gone by now.

It's not gone. Mine wasn't either. That's the whole book.

So I built a vault.

What the wall looks like - Every Friday

Sample wall. Real secrets go up starting January.

You type your secret. Anonymously - actually anonymously, built so that even I can't trace it back to you. It leaves your hands and it does not come back. No account. No edit button. No take-backs.

The doors open Friday, December 4th. Then we fill it. Starting in January, every Friday I'll pull a handful, stamp them, and put them where everyone can see them.

Nobody will ever know it was yours.

Everybody will know it was somebody's. That's the part that does the work.

Pre-order now and your invite lands December 4th.

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Any retailer counts. Any format counts. Hardcover, ebook, audiobook — the bonus is the same.

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