Our host Vick Hope is joined by Self Esteem.
Rebecca is one of the UK’s most exciting breakout musical stars of the past decade. Performing as Self Esteem, she rose from cult favourite to mainstream hero following the huge success of her empowering, truth-telling 2021 single, I Do This All The Time. Her trademark lyricism and razor-sharp wit led to a Mercury Prize nomination for her second solo album, Prioritise Pleasure, and was crowned the Guardian and Sunday Times Culture’s Album of the Year. Her latest album, A Complicated Woman, received the Visionary Award at the 2025 Ivor Novello Awards, praised for its ‘fearless, genre-defying songwriting that is reshaping the sound and substance of modern pop’. Her first book, also titled A Complicated Woman, is a Sunday Times bestseller, taking readers on a poignant, witty journey using notes, lyrics, and observational prose that gets to the heart of being a woman in the world today.
Listen to the full episode here and read on to discover Self Esteem’s five most influential books by women.
From page 1 I was just like, oh my god. Anything that’s led me closer to the realisation of why I feel so frustrated and why life’s felt so different for me from my brother or the boys I’ve been in bands with. […] People say my show looks Handmaid’s Tale-esque; what I was referencing was the pilgrim uniform that women would have to wear, and that’s obviously what inspired Margaret Atwood. […] I reread it a few years ago and can’t believe that at 17 I got the opportunity to read and study this, and I had this teacher who in self-reflection would be a Self Esteem fan. It’s amazing that the torch paper was lit when I was that young.
I always say this is my favourite book when I get asked what my favourite book is. […] It’s allowing yourself to not feel the problem, that’s not the bad bit – the wild person inside you, the wolf inside you, is not the problem. I’d had three decades of feeling like the problem was my emotions, and this book is the first time I think I read about how it’s physiologically natural, and gives power to that. It’s written in such a way that it’s just a given that you would have these feelings inside yourself, and it’s society and the system that has sold it back to you as a bad thing.
I’m a massive Miranda July fan, I’ve read everything she’s put out. I saw her movie at 18 and that made me want to be an artist. […] The storytelling is gripping and all she’s doing is stopping at a motel. […] There’s so much sexual tension in it that’s so graphic and so realistic, I love anything like that. I love weird sexy bits in books.
It’s really sexy but in a sort of medical way; it’s sex that’s not sanitised which I enjoyed. It’s almost meta, she discusses how the character can’t hold a book to read it because of her disability and she has a book scanner, and you’re reading it, holding it, and realising the privilege of that. It’s incredible how she writes and makes her point without bashing you over the head and telling you you’re bad. It’s so clever and made me think so much about the privilege I have – and the character is so defiant, actually like a hero.
You turn the page because you want to know what’s happening. And she’s relatable, it’s a ‘you’re in on it with her’ feeling. […] I’ve never read anything about eating disorders that’s like this. It’s not sensational and devastating and tragic, she’s living it and that’s her life. You feel sad for her but it also feels very sustainable, and that’s my experience with any time I’ve had a disordered eating phase. […] It’s a really good, empowering book, it’s so moving and relatable.
